
Boot—*. 

GpigMlN 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






A HISTORY 






CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO 



AND INCIDENTALLY OP THE 



STATE OF CALIFORNIA. 



JOHN S. HITTELL, 

Historian of the Society of California Pioneers ; Author of «« The Resources of 
California," ''A Brief History of Culture," etc., etc. 




SAN FRANCISCO; 
A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY. 

1878. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 

BY JOHN S. HITTELL, 

In the Offiee of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



/ ^\ 



k 



THIS 



VOLUME IS DEDICATED 



SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS 



HISTORIAN. 



PREFACE. 



This boot was -written at the request of the committee ap- 
pointed to manage the celebration in San Francisco of the 
Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of our National 
Independence, in accordance with a resolution adopted by Con- 
gress on the thirteenth of March, 1876, recommending that in 
every town the delivery of a historical sketch of the place from 
its foundation should be part of the local celebration. It was 
considered better that, instead of a brief sketch to be read pub- 
licly in an hour, the metropolis on the American coast of the 
North Pacific should have a book of several hundred pages. 
The city furnishes material enough for a history which could 
never be prepared on a more appropriate occasion than in com- 
memoration of the National Centennial year, especially since 
it happens to coincide with the completion of the first century 
in the existence of our city. Such a double epoch demanded 
some special mark of recognition. 

There are urgent reasons why works of this kind should be 
written by pioneers, and while there are still hundreds of 
pioneers living to furnish information from their personal 
reminiscences and from papers that will be lost when they die. 
No record, however brilliant in its composition or comprehen- 
sive and careful in its statements, could ever be accepted as 
satisfactory, as to many of the great events that have occurred 
here on a comparatively small stage of action within the last 
thirty years, unless based on the authority of the actors them- 
selves — who, with highly-wrought feelings, often played for the 
great stake of fortune, and sometimes for the still greater one 
of life, running through a succession of rapid and startling 



G PREFACE. 

vicissitudes. Whatever misfortunes have overtaken the indi- 
vidual citizens, they have the consolation of seeing that Cali- 
fornia has advanced with a swift and grand prosperity, and that 
they have participated in one of the most imposing pageants 
ever enacted on the stage of universal history. 

The scenes which I must try to depict for the reader will 
show a multitude of figures and many phases of passion. A 
host of adventurers flocking from the centers ctf civilization on 
the shores of the Atlantic, half across the world, to a remote 
corner on the coast of what was then the semi-barbarous Pacific, 
coming to make a brief stay in the rude search for gold, brought 
a high culture with them, and suddenly lifted their new home 
to 'an equal place among the most enlightened communities. 
The early American settlers in California, instead of being, as 
many persons at a distance supposed they would be, the mere 
offscourings of a low rabble, were, in a large proportion, men 
of knowledge and capacity; and if generally inexperienced in 
high station and serious responsibility, yet not incompetent for 
them. At brief notice they organized a state, complete in all 
its parts. As if by magic, their touch or their influence created 
magnificent cities; clipper ships, that cast the boasted India- 
men of England into disrepute; two railroads, connecting the 
Atlantic with the Pacific; a line of ocean steamers, connecting- 
Asia with America, and a telegraph line from the Golden Gate 
to the Mississippi. 

By their help, a village so insignificant that it had scarcely 
a mention on the map, grew till it became a leading center of 
population, commerce, industry, wealth, luxury, and of intel- 
lectual, political, and financial activity. They saw the in- 
digenous chaparral give way to tents, these to cloth-lined 
wooden buildings, and these to public and private palaces that 
rival the homes of Euroj)ean princes. Unable to find suitable 
room upon the land, they built a thousand houses and miles of 
street upon piles, rivaling the exploits of Venice and Amster- 
dam in encroaching upon the sea. But since this work, when 
first done in haste, lacked the character of permanence, the 



PREFACE. 7 

solid earth was moved out to give an everlasting foundation to 
the structures erected upon places once occupied by the bay. 
Under their labor, a hundred hills were cut down and trans- 
ported to fill as many valleys, and thus a spacious, level and 
solid site was made by costly art where nature had but little 
save steep ridge, unsightly ravine, swamp, mud-flat and deep 
bay. 

The pioneers saw nearly the whole business part of the city 
swept away by several great conflagrations. They saw the 
Sydney convicts threaten to become masters of the place in 
1851, and the political ruffians obtain a powerful influence in 
the municipal government in 1856; and in both cases, as the 
law was insufficient to provide a remedy, the people organized 
their vigilance committees which executed justice with a 
promptness, prudence, vigor and exactness that excited the 
envy of learned and honest judges. 

They saw in much of the state the savage retire before the 
cow-herd, who again retired before the wheat farmer. They 
saw the rise of a new horticulture which combines the energy 
of New England with the scientific training of Europe on a soil 
as fertile as that of Egypt, and in a climate as genial as that of 
Italy. They saw the development of a new mining industry, 
which lifted rivers from their beds, washed away the eternal 
hills, followed up and cleaned out the channels of the immense 
streams of an ancient geological era, and made topographical 
changes in the natural levels of the earth's surface so great that 
they may claim to exceed all that has ever been done elsewhere. 
"When the auriferous deposits of the western slope of the Sierra 
Nevada had yielded the best of their treasures, the miners 
crossed the mountain ridge, and astonished the world by their 
new metallurgy, their improved applications of machinery to 
deep mining, and a production of silver from the Comstock 
lode surpassing the aggregate yield of all the mines of Mexico 
and Peru when they were at their best under the dominion of 
Sjmin, and when they exported nothing worthy of note save 
precious metal. 



8 PREFACE. 

The men who took part in most of these wonderful changes, 
and witnessed all of them, feel that California, and especially 
San Francisco, has an interest for them such as no other coun- 
try or city could have acquired, in our age at least, nor do they 
lament that they did not live in some better time in the remote 
past. No golden era of romance or chivalry, no heroic period 
of Greece or Borne provokes their envy, or, in their conception, 
outshines the brilliancy of the scenes in which they have been 
actors. This is the very home of their souls. 

It is impossible for one to live long in San Francisco, and 
become familiar with its business and business men, without 
becoming attached to the city and state. However much he 
may see to dislike, he will also find much that commands his 
attention and fastens on his sympathies. The rapidity of 
growth, the energy in industry and traffic, the competition of 
commercial talents, the fever of speculation, the vast accumula- 
tion of wealth, the fierce fluctuations of fortune, the frequent 
visits of celebrities from all parts of the civilized world, and 
the magnitude of events occurring in swift succession on a 
comparatively small stage, never allow our interest to flag or 
permit us to forget that we are in an exceptional land, among 
a population who, though nearly all immigrants from , many 
different parts of America and Europe, yet, by long training 
under singular and impressive circumstances, have taken the 
general character of Californians and have come to regard 
themselves as a peculiar people. There is probably nothing 
that serves to distinguish them more than their pride in their 
state, their attachment to it, and their profound conviction that 
the more people elsewhere know of the country and its inhab- 
itants, the better they will like them. The Californians, espe- 
cially the pioneers, are proud of the large influence exercised 
by their state in the commerce and industry of the world. The 
discovery of the gold deposits of the Sierra Nevada was an im- 
portant event of peaceful progress, a notable fact in the history 
of commerce and industry. It was the beginning, or great 
stimulus of important changes, the like of which never were 



PREFACE. 9 

before attached to so small a community within so brief a 
period. 

It would be a mistake, however, to ascribe the pride of the 
pioneers exclusively to their opinion of the importance of their 
enterprise, in its direct or indirect influence on themselves or 
on the world at large. Their feelings are partly the result of 
an ardent attachment to the soil and climate of the state, and 
the most unbounded confidence, that, on account of the 
natural advantages, it must become one of the chief centers of 
the highest culture. Notwithstanding the vast accumulations 
of financial wealth, artistic treasure and interesting historical 
association in older and more popluous communities, the impres- 
sion prevails generally here, that this is a more desirable coun- 
try for the home of most of its people than any other under 
sun. We envy neither France, Tuscany, Naples, nor Pal- 
estine. The soil of our state is not sacred to us, in the sense 
in which the Ganges and Nile valleys, Jerusalem, Rome, and 
Nauvoo have been sacred, but our attachment to it is intense. 
Bounded by Shasta on the north, and San Bernardino on the 
south, Yosemite on the east, and the Golden Gate on the west, 
we have a territory that is blest by Nature beyond all the world. 
"Why should we not be proud of it ? The commerce, the 
wealth, the literature and the art of San Francisco; the hy- 
draulic washings and quartz mines of the Sierra Nevada; the 
quicksilver furnaces of the coast range; the borax deposits of 
the enclosed basin east of the snowy mountains; the wheat 
fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys; the orchards 
of Santa Clara and Alameda; the orange and olive groves of 
the southern coast; the sub-tropical valleys, the semi-frigid 
Californian Alps, the ever cool clime of our middle coast, a 
thousand precious mineral springs of various qualities, adapted 
to cure a hundred different phases of disease; an exemption 
from the influence that lead to the spread of many of the most 
formidable epidemics elsewhere, and the possession of remarka- 
ble advantages for sanitary purposes by large districts; these 
form an aggregate sufficient to breed, nourish and stimulate 



10 PREFACE. 

local pride as great as that which fills the breasts, not only of 
the pioneers, "but of most of the other residents of our city. 

The old Californians want a book to revive their recollections 
and to recall associations, which, vivid as they are in some re- 
spects, still need to be kindled anew, and connected with the 
present, as if proof were wanted that the wonders of their past 
lives are, after all, not mere dreams. Their experiences and 
impressions are part of the most valuable information of an age 
that must ever preserve a prominent place in the history of our 
state, though we hope the time may never come when enlight- 
ened readers elsewhere will look back to the first quarter cen- 
tury of American dominion in California, and read of that with 
interest, caring little for its later history, as now we read 
about the ages of Pericles in Athens, and of the Spanish con- 
querors in Mexico and Peru. 

As the most brilliant center of civilization in the basin of the 
North Pacific and the metropolis of the western slope of the 
United States, San Francisco and its history should have an in- 
terest for many readers beyond its borders. Its population has 
a representative character—a flavor of universal brotherhood. 
Every country of Europe and every state in the American 
Union has many natives among its population. A million homes 
between Maine and Texas, between Glasgow and Constanti- 
nople are interested in some son, daughter, brother or sister in 
the golden metropolis. The Teuton, the Latin, the Slav, the 
Celt, the Jew, the Magyar, and the Chinaman, show their signs 
and use their tongues in our streets. No other city has in pro- 
portion to its size so many heart-strings running out through 
all civilized nations. 

It is not possible, nor is it desirable to entirely separate the 
history of San Francisco from that of California. The 'former, 
though not without a large productive industry of its own, has 
depended upon the latter for its growth and prosperity. The 
city with its suburbs has now more than a third of the inhabit- 
ants and wealth of the state, and has from the first had more 
than any other metropolis as compared with its tributary popu- 



PREFACE. 11 

lation. "Whatever has added to the wealth of any town, or 
mining or agricultural district within ten degrees, has aided to 
enrich the " cbrysopolis," the golden city, as it has been styled. 
Here, most of the railroads and silver mines, and many of the 
gold mines, ranchos, canals, orchards and vineyards of the 
state are owned; here their revenues are invested, and are or 
will be enjoyed. San Francisco is the center and focus of the 
Pacific Slope of the United States, and its progress reflects 
and has been dependent on that of a wide area. 

So much it seemed proper to say by way of prefatory remark 
upon the subject and the book. 

J. S. H. 

San Francisco, 

October 1, 1878. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



INDIAN ERA. 



Section. Page. 

1. Aborigines 19 

2. Discovery of California 25 

3. Drake 26 

4. Vizcaino 29 

5. Missions Projected 30 

6. Franciscan Order 33 



Section. Page. 

7. Junipero Serra 33 

8. First Expedition 39 

9. First Missions 39 

10. Discovery of Bay 41 

11. Privations 42 



CHAPTER II. 



MISSION ERA. 



12. Visiting Expeditions 45 

13. First Settlement 47 

14. Mission Authority 49 

15. Indian Women 51 

16. Indian Men 53 

17. Savage Life 54 

18. Convert Life 55 

19. Indian Work 55 



20. No Education 56 

21. Number of Indians 58 

22. Great Mortality 59 

23. Friars 62 

24. Mission Buildings 64 

25. Mission Income 66 

26. Decay of Missions 68 



CHAPTER III. 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 

27. Secularization 70 

28. Land Grants 72 

29. Pueblo 76 

30. Leese 79 

31. Yerba Buena 82 

32. First House 84 

33. First Survey 86 



34. Hudson Bay 88 

35. Predictions 91 

36. Morrell 93 

37. Beechey 93 

38. Wilkes, etc 95 

39. American Longing 98 

40. Larkin 99 



14 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER III.— Continued. 



Section. Page. 

41. Fremont's Blunder 100 

42. Bear Flag 102 

43. American Flag 103 

44. Effect of Conquest 106 

45. Mormons 107 

46. Change of Name 110 

47. Stevenson's Regiment 112 



Section. 
48. 
40. 
50. 



Page. 

O'Farrell's Survey 114 

Sale of Lots 11G 

Census of 1847 117 

Leading Town 118 

Shipping in 1847 118 

Puff for California 120 

Peace 121 



CHAPTER IV. 



55. Gold 

56. Trade Stimulated 

57. Excitement in the East . 

58. 1849 

50. First Great Fire 

60. Telegraph Hill 

61. Edward Everett 

62. First Steamer 

63. Immigration by Sea 

64. Call for Convention 

65. Ayuntamiento 

66. City Government 

67. Constitution 

68. Summer of 1849 

69. Hounds 

70. Auctions 

71. More Lot Sales 

72. Inland Steamboats 

73. Plank Road 

74. Winter of 1849 

75. 1850 

76. Second Great Fire 

77. Legislative Work 



GOLDEN ERA. 

124 78. Admission 159 

126 79. Rejoicing 160 

129 80. Clipper Ships 162 

132 81. Pioneer Society 164 

133 82. Wharf Contracts 164 

134 S3. 1851 166 

135 84. Fourth and Fifth Fires 168 

136 85. Vigilance Committee, 1851.. 172 

139 86. Coroner's Verdict 174 

140 87. Execution of Stuart 175 

141 88. Whittakerand McKenzie... 176 

143 89. Land Commission 178 

144 90. 1852 183 

146 91. French Immigration 185 

148 92. Raousset 189 

149 63. Fighting in Sonora 189 

150 94. Obstacles 192 

150 95. End of Raousset 195 

151 99. 1853 196 

154 97. City Slip Sale 199 

155 98. Filibuster Walker 200 

156 99. Six Year's Work 206 

157 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 



100. 1854 203 

101. Dillon and Del Valle 209 

102. Mercantile Business 210 



103. Staple Imports 214 

104. Commercial Panic 215 

105. Meiggs 218 



CONTENTS. 



15 



CHAPTER V.— Continued. 



Section. Page. 

106. Forged Warrants 219 

107. Other Frauds 222 

10S. Meiggs's Flight 223 

109. 1855..., 226 

110. Adams & Co 227 

111. Panama Railroad 233 

112. Gambling 235 

113. Walker in Nicaragua 237 

114. 1856 239 

115. Political Corruption 241 

116. Murder of King 243 

117. Vigilance Committee, 1856. 245 

118. Swift Organization 247 

119. Casey and Cora Executed.. 249 

120. Ballot-box Stuffers 251 

121. Law and Order Party 253 

122. Arrest of Terry 254 

123. McGowan 257 

124. Hetherington and Brace .... 257 

125. Disbandment 258 

126. Work of the Committee.... 260 

127. People's Party 262 

128. 1857 266 

129. Crabb 268 

130. 1858 269 

131. Mining Excitements 271 

132. Fraser Fever 273 

133. 1859 27S 

134. Early Politics 279 

135. Broderick 281 



Section. Page. 

136. Hostility to Slavery 283 

137. Campaign of 1853 284 

138. Hammond Denounced 286 

139. Grab for Senatorship 287 

140. Chivalry Triumph 289 

141. Know-Nothing Triumph . . . 292 

142. H. S. Foote 293 

143. Chivalry in Discredit 294 

144. Vigilantes and Broderick . . . 295 

145. Senator at Last 296 

146. Sale of Second Senatorship . 297 

147. Offer to Sell it Again 299 

148. Reception of Gwin's Letter . 300 

149. No Patronage to Broderick . 301 

150. Insult to Buchanan 302 

151. Campaign of 1859 305 

152. Deadly Duel 307 

153. Conversion into a Hero 309 

154. Trading Capital 310 

155. Reward for Service 312 

156. Veracity 316 

157. Chase for Senatorship 318 

158. 1860 319 

159. Prosperity 321 

160. Bulkhead 323 

161. Pony Express 324 

162. Election of 1860 325 

163. Baker's Oration 327 

164. Seven Years 329 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SILVER ERA. 



165. 1861 331 

166. 1862 332 

167. Sanitary Fund 335 

168. 1863 339 

169. Silver Panic 339 

170. Conness 343 



171. 1S64 346 

1 72. Gold Currency 348 

173. Lincoln Re-elected 349 

174. 1S65 351 

175. Fire Telegraph 352 

176. Railroad Purchase 353 



16 



CONTEXTS. 



Outside Lands 362 



Section. rAGE 

177. Earthquake of 1S65 354 

178. City Slip Debt 354 

179. 1S6G 35 / 

180. Subsidies 35S 

181. Paid Tire Department 359 

182. Kearny Street Widened . . 
183. 
1S4. 
185. 
ISO. 
187. 
189. 
190. 
191. 
192. 
193. 



isg; 



364 



194. Changes 3 



War. 



3S1 
3S3 
3S4 
3S5 
388 
3S9 

Goat Island 3S9 

202. Belcher Bonanza 392 



195. 
19G. 
197. 
198. 
199. 
200. 
201. 



1S70 

Census of 1S70. 
French-German 

1871 

Ilawcs 

1S72 



CHAPTER VI.— Continued. 

Page. 

Diamond Fraud 393 

1S73 306 

Oakland Harbor 397 

Dolly Varden 398 

1S74 • 399 

Large Immigration 399 

Con. Virginia Bonanza 400 

Flood & O'Brien 401 

James Lick 403 

1875 404 

Calaveras Water Scheme. . . 405 

Bank of California 406 

Balston 409 

Eulogy 412 

Bank reorganized 414 

Virginia Fire 415 

Lick's Trustees Changed .. . 416 

1S76 417 

Lick's Death 418 

Centennial Celebration 419 



Railroad Progress 366 

Democratic Victory 3G7 

1868 369 

San Joaquin Valley 3 1 1 

18G9 372 

Pacific Tvailroad 373 

Vallojo Railroad 375 

Silver Mines 376 



Section 

203. 

204. 

205. 

206. 

207. 

20S. 

209. 

210. 

211. 

212. 

213. 

214. 

215. 

21G. 

217. 

2 IS. 

219. 

220. 

221. 
'•'2. 

223. 

224. 

.> > 



18" 



421 



3CSO. 

22G. 

007 



Ilard Times *® 

Workingrnen 424 

1878 426 

Eighteen Years 427 



CHAPTER YII. 



GENERALITIES. 



228. Natural Site 432 

229. Grades 43j 

230. Amount of Grading 437 

231. Sources of Buildings 438 

232. The Press 441 

233. Amusements 442 

234. Churches 444 

235. Charities 446 

236. Home Life 447 



237. 
238. 
239. 
240, 
241. 
242. 
243. 
244. 
245. 



Hotels 449 

450 

454 

458 



Millionaires 

Extravagance 

Social Spirit 

Swarming Out 462 

Governmental Defects 463 

Literature and Art 466 

Condition in 1878 475 

Conclusion 4/7 



CONTENTS. 
APPENDIX. 



17 



Page. 

Authorities . . . .» 483 

References 4 86 

Statistics 488 



Page. 

Index 493 

Subscribers 499 



HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE INDIAN ERA. 

Section 1. Aborigines. The origin of the Amer- 
ican Indian is a subject of conjecture and dispute 
among ethnologists, and when these disagree upon a 
point in their special domain, it would be presump- 
tuous for others to make a decision in a magisterial 
tone. Some theorists think that the red men were in- 
digenous to this continent ; others that they emigrated 
from north-eastern Asia. The main hope for addi- 
tional light upon the question in the future is in the 
study of the Indian languages, which have hitherto 
been neglected, because they contained no literature 
and were not rendered valuable by important his- 
torical associations. 

Numerous late discoveries of fossil human bones 
and works of rude art, in strata of gravel and sand 
which had not been disturbed for thousands of years, 
prove conclusively that California had been inhabited 
by men for many ages before its discovery by Cabrillo 
in 1542. The Indians of this coast have no records, 
nor have any of their early traditions been preserved, 



20 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

so that we do not know anything of them previous to 
the first visits of the Spanish navigators, save by 
inference from their condition, and that of their rela- 
tives in Lower California since then, and the examina- 
tion of exhumed implements. Of these latter the 
most important are rude mortars for grinding grass 
seeds — rough, hard stones, from a foot to two feet in 
diameter, with a shallow or deep concavity, in which, 
the seeds were pounded with a pestle. The material 
is usually granite or basaltic rock. Besides the mor- 
tars, miners have dug up arrow-heads, made of flint 
and obsidian, similar to those made and used of late 
years. Nothing has been found among the fossils, or 
elsewhere, to indicate that the ancient inhabitants 
of the country were ever above a very low stage of 
savagism. There are no pieces of pottery, no metallic 
tools or ornaments, no cut stone, no remains of stone 
or brick buildings, nor signs of fortifications. The 
failure to find these things, or anything equally high 
in character, either on the surface of the earth or un- 
derground, in a country where so much of the deep 
alluvium has been turned up, and where so many mor- 
tars and arrow-heads have been found, implies that 
they never were here. All the archaeological evidence 
goes to show that the natives of California were as 
savage in a. d. 542 as they were a thousand years 
later ; and this inference is supported by the historical 
principle that savage tribes, unless disturbed by con- 
tact with a more advanced race, usually remain in the 
same condition for centuries upon centuries. The 



THE INDIAN ERA. 21 

earliest accounts that we have of the Indians about 
San Francisco bay, show them to us — as most of them 
remained until long after the Missions were established 
— far below the red inhabitants of any other part 
of the continent; and so low, indeed, in the scale of 
humanity, that we must go down to the aboriginal 
Australians and the most degraded of Papuans to find 
their equals. They had no metals, no woven cloth, no 
pottery; no arms save the bow and arrow; no cultivated 
lands of any kind; no domestic animals save dogs; no 
houses, but only rude huts made by putting sticks 
over a hole in the ground, and covering them with 
dirt, or by thatching a frame of brush with flags or 
tules; and no boats or canoes for the navigation of San 
Francisco bay or any of its tributary waters. 

Their mechanical industry consisted mainly of weav- 
ing baskets, and making bows, arrows and spears. 
The baskets, woven of wire grass, were water-tight, 
and were used for cooking and for carrying burdens. 
The bows were made of young trees, perhaps the west- 
ern yew, and were covered on the back with deer 
sinews. The arrows had heads of obsidian, sharp- 
ened by striking it and chipping it off until an edge 
was obtained; it then cut like broken glass. Knives 
and spcar-heads were made in the same manner. 
Spears for fish had a little point of bone, which came 
out of the socket the moment after the game was 
struck, and then, being fastened to the spear handle 
by a cord, turned cross-wise in the flesh. 

The men went naked in the summer, and in the 



22 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

* 
winter wore a deer-skin over the back. The women 

covered themselves from the hips to the knees, with 
an apron made by tying pieces of flag or bark to a 
girdle. Neither sex had any covering for the head 
or feet. Their food consisted mainly of grass seeds, 
acorns, buckeyes, berries, fish, grasshoppers, Clevel- 
and edible roots or tubers, with, occasionally, birds, rab- 
bits, and deer. Those living near the rivers, caught 
great quantities of salmon in their season, but they 
had not skill in preparing any flesh to keep. They 
were poor hunters and rarely killed large game, not- 
withstanding its abundance. Acorns were mashed, 
and after being mixed with water, the dough was 
cooked by burying it with red-hot stones under and 
above. The buckeyes were mashed and made with 
water into a thin gruel, which was boiled by throwing 
red-hot stones into it. Summer brought an abundance 
of provisions, and the Indians got fat; in the winter 
their food became scarce and they grew lean. It was 
observed that, like some wild beasts, their offspring 
were generally born in the spring. 

They had no religion, no conception of a deity or 
a future life, no idols, no form of worship, no priests, 
no philosophical conceptions, no historical traditions, 
no proverbs, no mode of recording thought. Their 
domestic and social polity was of the simplest nature; 
polygamy was common, and slavery not rare; the 
husband had absolute power over the persons and lives 
of his wives, the parent over his children, the master 
over his slaves. Woman was treated as an inferior. 



THE INDIAN ERA. 23 

It was her duty to perform all the labor of carrying 
burdens, collecting vegetable food, grinding grass 
seed and doing such miscellaneous work as would have 
been in their opinion a disgrace to the men, who did 
little more than to hunt, fish, go to war, make a few 
arms, and lounge about. The chief support of the 
family came from the wife; and the man was consid- 
ered to be well situated in life, in proportion to the 
number of nominal wives, but real slaves, whom he 
had to wait upon him. Women were the chief article of 
wealth; there was no public ceremony to mark the 
besfinninof of the relation of husband and wife, and no 
sacredness in the relation after it had commenced. 
They had no political organization; there was no 
king, no prince, no hereditary authority, no political 
bond on which command could be based. Some man 
distinguished by more courage, bravery or good luck 
than his fellows, misfit be recognized as a leader for a 
time, but there was no permanence to his power; there 
were no orderly public councils, nor any tribunals to 
administer public justice. The tribes were small, and, 
in the coast valleys, were usually at war, or at least 
not at peace with the tribes in the adjacent valleys. 
It was dangerous for a man to venture alone across the 
mountains which bounded the home of his tribe; they 
had not the courage and spirit to be warlike, nor the 
friendliness and good faith to have firm peace. War 
was made in the rudest, most cruel, and most cow- 
ardly manner; ambushes, midnight surprises, and 
fighting under cover, and at long distances, were 



24 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

always preferred to fair encounter upon the open field in 
davliorht. Their onlv ceremonies were cremations and 
dances; they burned their dead amidst the concourse 
of the whole tribe, usually at night; and while the 
body was broiling in the flames, the women howled 
and wailed, and men marched round the funeral pyre. 
There was one main dance every year, in the spring, 
and that, too, was held at night. A party of a half 
a dozen or more men placed themselves in a row, while 
a monotonous chant was sung by women sitting around. 
In some tribes the infant left by the deceased mother 
was burned with her, not as a religious sacrifice, but 
as a simple mode of getting rid of a child for which 
nobody would care. 

The Aztecs built up a great empire, remarkable for 
its military power, its architectural monuments, its 
astronomical discoveries, its general industry, and 
skill in many of the mechanic arts. The Indians of 
the upper Mississippi valley were distinguished for 
their manliness, bravery, constancy, and warlike skill; 
and the remains of extensive fortifications and great 
mounds show that a large and industrious population 
once dwelt there. In the Hawaiian Islands, the na- 
tives, when discovered by Cook, were the most amiable 
children of nature — full of friendliness, affection, volup- 
tuousness and grace in time of peace, and capable of 
extensive combinations and sturdy courage in war. 
Religious dogmas, professional priests, extensive po- 
litical organizations, hereditary chiefs, open councils for 
the discussion of public affairs, and systematic agricul- 



THE INDIAN ERA. 25 

ture: all these were found amonof the tribes living in 
the eastern and southern parts of the continent and 
the nearest islands, but none of them existed in the 
central basin of California, or the valleys opening into 
San Francisco bay. The only sparks of industry and 
spirit were found in the deserts of the Colorado and 
the Mojave, in the bleak and rugged valley of the 
Klamath, or in a small district near Santa Barbara. 

Sec. 2. Discovery of California. Mexico was con- 
quered in 1519, and Peru in 1532. The prizes there 
taken were so great, that the Spanish adventurers 
in the New World, were full of hope that more such 
kingdoms might be found and plundered. They looked 
to the north-west coast of America as the possible 
seat of a wealthy empire, and they made great exertions 
to find it. 

When Cortes went to the court of Charles V., in 
1528, he was received with distinguished honor, and 
rewarded for his services to the empire with many 
concessions then considered important; among these 
was one, that he might conquer at his own expense 
any countries north-west of Mexico, annex them to 
the Spanish crown, keep for himself one twelfth of the 
precious metals and pearls, and retain the perpetual 
viceroyalty for himself and his male heirs. So soon 
as he had returned to Mexico, he commenced to make 
preparations for his new expedition of conquest, but 
various obstacles arose, and he did not go to sea in 
person until 1535. At last, he found nothing save 
the peninsula of Lower California, which was so bar- 



26 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ren that he soon abandoned the hope of finding any- 
thing there, and many difficulties prevented him from 
going further. When he returned to Mexico in 1537, 
he learned that during his absence, two Spaniards, 
who had landed with De Soto ten years before in 
Florida, had crossed the continent and reached Culi- 
acan, bringing with them the report of a rich, popu- 
lous, and extensive empire in the north-west. They 
did not pretend to have seen the country, or to have 
any precise knowledge of it, but they had heard gen- 
eral rumors of it. Their story corresponded so well 
with the greedy hopes and ambitions of the Spaniards, 
that it found ready faith, stimulated the desire to find 
another prize like Mexico, and led to the discovery of 
California by an expedition sent out in 1542 under 
Jose It. Cabrillo, who did not explore the shore any- 
where, or see any sign of San Francisco, though 
he sailed northward to latitude 44°. The name 
of California was first used in an obscure Spanish 
romance, and there applied to an imaginary land lying 
north-west of Mexico, as known when the book was 
published, soon after the conquest of Mexico. As used 
geographically, California meant nothing but what has 
been called Lower California since 1769. 

Sec. 3. Drake. In 1579, Sir Francis Drake, 
English navigator, who had been out plundering 
Spanish ships and towns on the western coast of South 
America and Mexico, determined to try to return to 
England by the passage supposed to exist in an open 
sea north of the American continent. He found the 



THE INDIAN ERA. 27 

weather so cold in latitude 42°, that he turned south- 
ward again, preferring to run the risk of being taken 
by the Spaniards, while sailing in the South Pacific 
and passing the Straits of Magellan, rather than to 
face the chilly winds of the northern ocean. On the 
17th of June, he entered a "faire good bay," "within 
thirty-eight degrees of latitude of the line." J. W. 
Dwindle thinks that he anchored in Bolinas Bay in 
latitude 37° 54/, but a common opinion among navi- 
gators, that he entered the bay behind Point Reyes, 
induced them to give the name of Drake's Bay to 
that place, which is exactly in latitude thirty-eight, 
while the entrance of San Francisco bay is thirteen 
minutes farther south. If he had entered the last- 
named bay, it is not probable that he would have 
allowed it to pass with simply calling it " faire and 
good," without speaking of its large size, strong cur- 
rents, magnificent entrance, fertile shores, secure an- 
chorage, and numerous islands, matters which no 
intelligent navigator could overlook, and which he 
must have observed if he had entered. He came to 
the coast for the purpose of finding a passage to the 
Atlantic, and after observing such deep channels as 
as the northern and southern arms of San Francisco 
bay, he would scarcely turn back without examining 
them, or give an account of his voyage without men- 
tioning them. He speaks, however, of numerous 
conies, and if by those he meant our ground-squirrels, 
he must have gone a considerable distance from 
Drake's bay, though they abound near ours. The 



28 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

" cony" is a rabbit, not a squirrel, and there arc rab- 
bits at Point Reyes. Here the Indians could build 
their houses close by the water-side, better than un- 
der the shelter of Point Peyes, and he says the Indians 
had their huts at the edge of the water. 

He says further, that the country was governed by 
an Indian king", and that the Indians solicited Drake 
to stay and be their ruler. He accepted, on behalf of 
his sovereign, the crown and sceptre offered to him, 
by the aboriginal monach. Wherever the earth was 
examined, silver and gold were found in it. These 
assertions are so improbable, that they are unworthy 
of credence. The savages had no king, nor thought 
of a crown or sceptre, nor tongue intelligible to the 
English; but the chronicler may have made false 
statements for the sake of conveying the impression, 
that England had some kind of a claim to the new 
land. 

There is no specification of circumstances to give 
probability to the story about the finding of gold and 
silver, nor any account of a search for those metals, 
or of any specimens having been obtained by Drake. 
Gold and silver are not found in the earth near Drake's 
bay or the bay of San Francisco, and we have no rea- 
son to believe that he penetrated far inland. 

The existence of a "San Francisco bay" near lati- 
tude 38° was known to the Spaniards soon after Drake 
made his voyage, and as there is no other way to ac- 
count for its discovery or the origin of its name, it is 
possible that the Spaniards got their knowledge from 



THE INDIAN ERA. 29 

Drake and applied to the bay his first name altered to 
suit their tongue and creed. The bay of San Fran- 
cisco may be considered the Spanish equivalent of the 
bay of Sir Francis. 

Sec. 4. Vizcaino. In 1595, the " San Augustin," 
under command of Captain Cer merlon, was sent from 
Manila to examine the coast of California, which 
the annual galleon, on the way from the Phillipine 
Islands to Mexico, had to skirt, but he was wrecked 
in Drake's Bay, then known as San Francisco Bay. 
We are not told how this wrecked party escaped, but 
the pilot reached Mexico and occupied the same posi- 
tion seven years later in the exploring expedition of 
two vessels sent from Acapulco, under charge of 
Sebastian Vizcaino, who, after touching at San Diego 
and Monterey, also entered Drake's Bay, which the 
pilot recognized as the place where he had been 
wrecked. The description of Drake's Bay, as given 
in the account of this voyage in the history of Cali- 
fornia by Venegas, written about 1768, is unmistak- 
able, but it is there called " the port of San Francis- 
co," and there was no knowledge or suspicion of a 
larger and better harbor within a few miles. Vizcaino 
did not land at Drake's Bay, but spent only one night 
there, and continued his voyage to the northward, 
finding nothing of interest in the history of Califor- 
nia. 

No attempt was made to explore the coast by any 
vessel between 1603 and 1769, but in 1740 a Spanish 
map of it was published and it represented the Faral- 



30 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Ion Islands lying west of a circular bay with a diame- 
ter of thirty miles and a short and narrow entrance. 
No name is attached to it but the Spaniards knew of 
no other anchorage save San Francisco bay in this 
vicinity. We shall never know where the map-maker 
got his idea of the form of the bay. An old English 
chart presumptively prepared from Drake's informa- 
tion represents Drake's bay as semi-circular, which 
form agrees pretty well with the anchorage under Point 
Reyes, but is entirely inapplicable to the inland sea 
opening into the Pacific at the Golden Gate. 

Sec. 5. Missions Projected. The expulsion of 
the Jesuits having been ordered in 1767, the Francis- 
can friars were instructed to take possession of the 
Jesuit missions in peninsular California, and also to 
establish new Missions which should protect the coun- 
try farther north against seizure by the English or 
French, more especially the former, as the more enter- 
prising in such matters, and the less friendly. The 
growth of Great Britain in commerce, industry, 
wealth, military power and reputation abroad, was 
extremely rapid about the middle of the eighteenth 
century. England had already become the greatest 
of mercantile and manufacturing nations. In four 
great wars France was beaten, humiliated, and almost 
broken, and in the last of them, with England, from 
175G to 1703, she lost her great possessions in Asia 
and America — Hindostan and Canada. 

After the peace, which secured to Great Britain not 
simply the political dominion over these conquests, 



THE INDIAN ERA. 31 

but the far more important profits of their commerce 
and almost exclusive possession of the sea, as a naval 
power and a shipping nation, she began to look around 
for further prizes. There was much talk of the new 
countries to be occupied, new colonies to be planted, 
and new islands to be discovered. Now that Canada 
was English, it was doubly important, if possible, to 
discover the north-west passage by sea between the 
two great oceans, from Baffin's or Hudson's Bay, 
westward. The exploring vessels of Cook, and other 
British navigators about the same time, did not sail 
until after the Missions had been established; but the 
preliminary talk had commenced years before, and the 
Spanish court was influenced, if not governed, by 
fears of English expeditions. 

It was not the intention to establish towns too 
strong to be taken by the English, in case they should 
resort to force ; but no war was then feared, and the 
mere occupation of a few points, it was thought, 
would be sufficient. The cheapest and simplest mode 
of taking possession of a distant country which of- 
fered no great prizes or precious metals, pearls or 
gems, would be to found Missions, and that was the 
method adopted. It was expected that these would 
be the beginnings of settlements, which in a genera- 
tion or two would grow into valuable supports of the 
Spanish crown. At the same time that the king 
ordered the Jesuits to leave his kingdom and its de- 
pendencies, he provided that the Franciscan monks 
should succeed them in the management of the Mis- 



32 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

sions of California, and that other Missions should be 
established farther north on the coast, which then, for 
the first time, was called Upper or New California, 
while the peninsula was designated as Old or Lower 
California. 

The two best known ports in the former region, 
San Diego and Monterey, though one hundred and fifty 
miles apart were selected as sites for the first Missions 
to be established. There was abundant work in the 
vicinity of San Diego; and several Missions near one 
another in the southern district of the new country 
would be of less expense than the same number separ- 
ated by long distances. The government at Madrid 
was well aware that the Missions in Lower California, 
after having been in existence for more than half a 
century, were constant and considerable burdens to 
the public treasury, and it could not be expected that 
the expense would be less for new Missions, so much 
more remote. The probable cost was not sufficient to 
outweigh the important object of securing the north- 
western American coast to the Spanish crown, and so 
the occupation by missionaries was ordered. The con- 
vent of San Fernando, the principal establishment of 
the Franciscan monks in New Spain, was to have 
charge of the religious department. The superior of 
the convent selected Junipero Serra to be the head of 
the friars in California. In 1768, Serra, with fifteen 
Franciscans, arrived at Loreto, in Lower California, to 
succeed the sixteen Jesuits who had left the peninsula 
a few weeks before. 



THE INDIAN ERA. 33 

Sec. 6. Franciscan Order. The Franciscans made 
missionary labor among the poor their specialty. 
Their position in the Catholic church is like that of 
the Methodists in Protestantism; they carry the gospel 
to the lowly, and care less relatively for learning and 
social polish than the spirit of devotion. They are 
distinguished for humility, poverty, and self denial. 
They accept literally the command to have no surplus 
garments. One woolen gown tied at the waist by a 
hempen cord, with a pair of sandals, was their usual 
suit. This order was entrusted with the establishment 
of Spanish authority, and the Christian religion in 
California. 

Sec. 7. Junipero Serra. Junipero Serra, the 
founder of the Missions, was born on the Island of 
Majorca, part of the kingdom of Spain, on the twenty- 
fourth of November, 1713. At the age of sixteen, he 
became a friar of the order of St. Francis, and the 
new name of Junipero w T as then substituted for his 
baptismal name of Miguel Jose. After entering the 
convent, he went through a collegiate course of study, 
and before he had received the degree of doctor, was ap- 
pointed lecturer upon philosophy. He became a noted 
preacher, and was frequently invited to visit the large 
towns of his native island in that capacity. . 

Junipero was thirty-six years of age when he de- 
termined to become a missionary in the new w T orld. 
In 1749 he crossed the ocean in company with a num- 
ber of brother Franciscan friars, among them several 
who afterwards came with him to California. He re- 



34 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

mained but a short time in the city of Mexico, and 
was soon sent as a missionary to the Indians in the 
Sierra Madre, in the district now known as the state 
of San Luis Potosf. He spent nine years there, and 
then returned to the city of Mexico, where he stayed 
for seven years, in the convent of San Fernando. In 
1767, when fifty-four years of age, he was appointed 
to the charge of the Missions to be established in 
Upper California. He arrived at San Diego, 1769, 
and with the exception of one journey to Mexico, he 
spent all the remainder of his life here, dying at the 
Mission of Carmel, near Monterey, on the twenty- 
eighth of August, 1784, aged seventy-one years. 

Our knowledge of his character is derived almost 
exclusively from his biography by Palou, also a native 
of Majorca, a brother Franciscan friar who had been 
his disciple, came across the Atlantic with him, was 
his associate in the convent of San Fernando, his 
companion in the expedition to California, his succes- 
sor in the presidency of the Missions of Old Califor- 
nia, his subordinate afterwards in New California, his 
attendant at his death-bed, and his nearest friend for 
forty years or more. Under the circumstances, Palou 
had a right to record the life of his preceptor and 
superior. 

Junipero Serra was a typical Franciscan, a man to 
whom his religion was everything. All his actions 
were governed by the ever-present and predominant 
idea that life is a brief probation, trembling between 
eternal perdition on one side, and salvation on the 



THE INDIA N ERA . 35 

other. Earth, for its own sake, had no joys for him. 
His soul did not recognize this life as its home. He 
turned with dislike from nearly all those sources of 
pleasure in which the polished society of our age de- 
lights. As a friar, he had in boyhood renounced all 
the joys of love and the attractions of woman's 
society. The conversation of his own sex was not a 
source of amusement to him. He w T as habitually 
serious. Laughter was inconsistent with the terrible 
responsibilities of this probationary existence. Not a 
joke or a jovial action is recorded of him. He de- 
lighted in no joyous books. Art or poetry never 
served to sharpen his wits, lighten his spirits, or solace 
his weary moments. The sweet devotional poetry of 
Fray Luis de Leon and the delicate humor of Cer- 
vantes, notwithstanding the perfect piety of both, 
were equally strange to him. He knew nothing of 
the science and philosophy which threw all enlightened 
nations into fermentation a hundred years ago. The 
rights of man and the birth of chemistry did not with- 
draw his fixed gaze from the other world wmich formed 
the constant subject of his contemplation. 

It was not enough for him to abstain from positive 
pleasure; he considered it as his duty to inflict upon 
himself bitter pain. He ate little, avoided meat and 
wine, preferred fruit and fish, and never complained of 
the quality of his food or sought to have it more 
savory. He often lashed himself with ropes, sometimes 
with wire; he was in the habit of beating himself in 
the breast with stones, and at times he put a burning 



36 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

torch to his breast. These things he did while preachr 
ing, or at the close of his sermons, his purpose being, 
as his biographer says, not only to punish himself, but 
also to move his auditory to penitence for their own 
sins. Palou relates the following incident, which 
occurred during a sermon which he delivered in Mex- 
ico. The precise date and place are not given : 

" Imitating- his devout San Francisco Solano, he drew out a 
chain, and letting his habit fall below his shoulders, after hav- 
ing exhorted his auditory to penance, he began to beat himself 
so cruelly that all the spectators were moved to tears, and one 
man rising up from among them went with all haste to the pul- 
pit, and taking- the chain from the penitent father, came down 
with it to the platform of the presbytery, and following the 
example of the venerable preacher, he bared himself to the 
waist and began to do public penance, saying, with tears and 
sobs, ' I am the sinner, ungrateful to God, who ought to do 
penance for my sins, and not the father, who is a saint.' So 
cruel and pitiless were the blows, that in the sight of all the 
people he fell down. They supposing him to be dead, the last 
unction and sacrament were administered to him there, and 
soon after that he died. We may believe with pious faith that 
his soul is enjoying the presence of God." 

Serra and his biographer did not receive the Protes- 
tant doctrine, that there have been no miracles since 
the apostolic age. They believed that the power pos- 
sessed by the chief disciples of Jesus had been inher- 
ited by Catholic priests of their time, and they 
saw wonders where their contemporary clergymen, 
like Conyers Middleton and Joseph Priestly, saw 
nothing save natural mistakes. Palou records the 
following story with unquestioning faith : 



THE INDIAN ERA. 37 

"When Serra was traveling -with a party of missionaries 
through the province of Huasteca, in Mexico, many of the vil- 
lagers did not go to hear the word of God, at the first village 
where they stopped; but scarcely had the fathers left the place 
when it was visited by an epidemic, which carried away sixty 
villagers, all of whom, as the curate of the place wrote to the 
Reverend Father Junipero, were persons who had not gone to 
hear the missionaries. The rumor of the epidemic having gone 
abroad, the people in other villages were dissatisfied with their 
curates for admitting the missionaries; but when they heard that 
only those died who did not listen to the sermons, they became 
very punctual, not only the villagers, but the country people 
dwelling upon ranchos many leagues distant. 

" Their apostolic labors having been finished, they were upon 
their way back, and at the end of a few days' journey when the 
sun was about to set, they knew not where to spend the night, 
and considered it certain that they must sleep on the open plain. 
They were thinking about this when they saw near the road a 
house, whither they went and solicited lodging. They found a 
venerable man, with his wife and child, who received them with 
much kindness and attention, and gave them supper. In the 
morning the fathers thanked their hosts, and taking leave, pur- 
sued their way. After having gone a little distance they met 
some muleteers, who asked them where they I?~.d passed the 
night. "When the place was described, the muleteers declared 
that there was no house or rancho near the road, or within many 
leagues. The missionaries attributed to Divine Providence, the 
favor of that hospitality, and believed undoubtingly, that these 
hosts were Jesus, Mary and Joseph, reflecting not only about 
the order and cleanness of the house, though poor, and the affec- 
tionate kindness with which they had been received, but also 
about the extraordinary internal consolation which their hearts 
had felt there." 

The vessel in which Serra crossed the Atlantic, hav- 
ing been caught by a terrible storm when within 
sight of Vera Cruz, sprang a leak, and the water con- 



38 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tinuing to rise in spite of the pumping, the sailors re- 
quested the captain to run upon the beach as the only 
way to escape from sinking in the open sea. He re- 
fused and the sailors spoke of mutiny. From these 
dangers Palou assures us, the ship was saved by a 
miracle. The friars, including Junipero, put their 
heads together and agreed that the proper thing to be 
done was to apply to the proper saint, who was to be 
found by lot. Each friar wrote the name of a saint on 
a scrap of paper; the scraps were thrown together and 
mixed up; and then one was taken out at random. It 
had the name of Santa Barbara, and it so happened by 
a fortunate coincidence that the day on which the event 
occurred was consecrated to her in the Catholic calen- 
dar. All on board shouted •" hurrah for Santa Bar- 
bara" (viva Santa Barbara); at the moment the storm 
ceased; the wind which had been adverse became 
favorable, and in two days the vessel was at anchor in 
the harbor of Vera Cruz. These passages in the 
book of Palou must be supposed to represent the opin- 
ions of Serra as well as his companion,, friend and 
biographer. 

From 1752 till 1767, Serra was a commissioner of 
the inquisition in Mexico, the office was one which 
Franciscans seldom held, and in which they never 
distinguished themselves. We have no record of any 
of Junipero's labors in that capacity. 

His religious convictions found in him a congenial 
mental constitution; he was even-tempered, temperate, 
obedient, zealous, kindly in speech, humble and quiet. 



THE INDIAN ERA. 39 

His cowl covered neither creed, guile, hypocrisy nor 
pride. He had no quarrels and made no enemies. He 
sought to be a simple friar, and he was one in sincerity. 
Probably few have approached nearer to the ideal 
perfection of a monkish life than he. Even those who 
think that he made great mistakes of judgment in re- 
gard to the nature of existence and the duties of man 
to society, must admire his earnest, honest and meek 
character. 

Sec. 8. First Expedition. Arrangements having 
been previously made in Lower California by Inspec- 
tor-general Jose Galvez, and President Junipero, two 
expeditions were sent by sea and two by land to San 
Diego. The little vessel " San Carlos" sailed from Cape 
San Lucas on the eleventh of January with twenty- 
five soldiers under Lieutenant Pedro Fages, and did 
not reach her destination till after a lapse of three 
months and a half, in which time she lost all her 
sailors save one by scurvy. The companion vessel " San 
Antonio" started a month later, and entered the harbor 
after eight of her sailors had died, on the eleventh of 
April, 1769, on which day the permanent occupation 
of California by white men begun. Captain Bivera 
and Friar Crespi, with the first land expedition reached 
San Diego on the fourteenth of May; Captain Portala 
(destined to be the governor of the territory), and 
Father Junipero with the second on the first of July. 

Sec. 9. First Missions. Not much time was lost 
or spent in idleness. So soon as Junipero arrived, he 
made preparations for active work. On the ninth of 



40 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

July the "San Antonio" sailed for San Bias to get a 
number of sailors to supply the places of those who 
had died of the scurvy. The occupation of Monterey 
having been one of the most important objects of the 
expedition, Gov. Portala set forth on the fourteenth 
of July by land, with friars Juan Crespi and Gomez, 
fifty-five other whites and some Indians, to find the 
port. On the eleventh of July the Mission of San 
Diego was founded — that is, a mass of unusual solem- 
nity was said, and Father Junipero made a formal 
declaration that the site had been chosen for an estab- 
lishment where the savages of New California should 
learn the doctrines of Christianity and the road of 
salvation. 

When Crespi and Portald,, in their northward 
march, reached the mouth of the Salinas river, they 
looked for the harbor of Monterey, but saw no secure 
anchorage, and presuming that either there had been 
a mistake in the latitude, as mentioned in the books, 
or that the port had been filled up by sand in the cen- 
tury and a half since Vizcaino had examined the har- 
bor, they went northward in search of it, or another 
port. Passing along the coast for several days after 
leaving Monterey bay, they then crossed the mount- 
ains to the western side of San Francisco bay, and 
on the seventh of November reached the end of the 
peninsula and discovered the Golden Gate. The diary 
of friar Crespi contains the first distinct mention of 
the bay, and with most authorities he has the credit 
of the discovery, though Dr. Still man has made a 



THE INDIAN ERA. 41 

plausible argument to prove that Drake is entitled to 
the honor. 

Sec. 10. Discovery of Bay. The Spanish ex- 
plorers did not imagine that they had made a discov- 
ery. They saw that the harbor was different from 
that of Monterey, described by Vizcaino, but they 
imagined it was the bay of San Francisco, mentioned 
by their navigators as lying under shelter of Point 
Reyes. Friar Juan Crespi, who may be considered 
the head of the expedition, not knowing that he had 
made a discovery, did on the seventh of November, 
1709, discover the site and harbor of San Francisco, 
and he gave to them the name which they now bear. 

So soon as Crespi reported that he had found an 
extensive and apparently a deep bay (he had no means 
of sounding), the idea arose that the bay and its im- 
mediate vicinity were destined to play an important 
part in the future of California. Although the friars 
had difficulties in maintaining the Missions ' already 
established, and keeping up a connection between 
them, they were anxious for another near the new 
harbor; but the purpose was not carried into effect 
until seven years later. Palou, in his biography of 
Serra, says: 

"As soon as I read this news, I attributed their failure to find 
the harbor of Monterey at the place designated on the ancient 
chart, to a divine disposal that they should continue their course 
until they should arrive at the port of San Francisco, for the 
reason that I am about to state: "When the venerable father, 
Friar Junipero, was consulting with the illustrious inspector- 
general about the first three Missions which he directed him to 



42 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

found in his New California, seeing the names and the patrons 
■which he had assigned to them, he said to him: ' Senor, and is 
there no Mission for our father?' (St. Francis), to which Galvez 
replied: ' If St. Francis desires a Mission, let him see that his 
port is found, and it will be placed there/ The expedition 
went up, arrived at the port of Monterey, stopped and planted 
the cross without any of those of the party recognizing ifc, ac- 
cording to the description of it in history; went up forty leagues 
further, found the port of our father St. Francis, and recognized 
it immediately by its agreement with the marks which they had. 
In consideration of these facts, what shall we say but that our 
father wished to have a Mission at his port ?" 

Sec. 11. Privations. So soon as Portala reached 
San Dieofo on his return, he made an examination of 
the stock of provisions, and found it so small that 
unless supplies should arrive before the twentieth of 
March, it would be necessary to abandon the country 
and return to the Missions of Lower California. The 
"San Antonio" had been overdue for months, but navi- 
gation was so uncertain in those days, and among 
those people, that the hope of seeing her was almost 
given up. As the time fixed for the departure ap- 
proached, every preparation was made for the journey, 
and on the twentieth all were ready to start, when a 
sail was seen off the port. The vessel did not enter 
the harbor until four days later, but the sight of her 
put an end to all thoughts of abandonment. She 
brought sailors, provisions, funds and letters of en- 
couragement and promise from the viceroy and in- 
spector-general. 

The maintenance of San Diego having been secured, 
it was determined that another attempt should be 



TIIE INDIAN ERA. 43 

made to find Monterey. On the sixteenth of April, a 
party set out by land, and the next day the "San An- 
tonio" sailed with Father Junipero on board. The land 
party reached the bay on the twenty-fourth May, and 
the barque on the thirty-first. The port was found 
precisely as described by Vizcaino, one hundred and 
sixty-seven years before. On the third of June, the 
Mission of San Carlos, and the presidio or fort of 
Monterey were founded, and a formal declaration was 
made that possession had been taken of the country 
in the name of the king of Spain. The Indians did 
not approach the Spaniards for several days, having 
been frightened by the discharges of artillery and 
musketry, but they soon recovered from their fears, 
and from that time forward were very friendly with 
the whites. The first savage was baptized on the 
twenty-sixth December, seven months after the foun- 
dation of the Mission. 

The news of the establishment of the Mission and 
presidio at Monterey reached the city of Mexico on 
the tenth of August, 1770, and the viceroy, Marquis 
de Croix, and the inspector-general, Galvez, consid- 
ered the fact so important for " the glory of God, the 
extension of our most holy Catholic religion, and the 
honor of our Catholic monarch," that they ordered all 
the church bells to ring in rejoicing. Accompanied 
by the high officials of the city, they attended a 
special mass, said for the occasion in the cathedral, 
and afterwards the viceroy, as representative of the 



44 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

king, received the congratulations of tha principal 
officers and citizens. A couple of days later, a circu- 
lar was printed, reciting the leading facts of the estab- 
lishment of the two Missions of New California. 



THE MISSION ERA, 45 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MISSION ERA. 

Section 12. Visiting Expedition. As the Missions 
prospered and the time was approaching when others 
must be established farther north, an exploring ex- 
pedition was sent out in March, 1772, from Monterey, 
under charge of Friar Crespi. Instead of passing west 
of the bay as in 1769, he followed the eastern shore; 
on the twenty-sixth of that month passed the present 
site of Oakland, and four days later after going through 
Napa and Sonoma valleys, reached Russian river. 
From a hill near Carquinez strait he saw the Sacra- 
mento and San Joaquin valleys, thus seeing some of 
the most fertile and beautiful portions of California in 
his journey. The next time that the bay was seen 
was in December, 1774, on the fourth of which month 
Friar Palou, with a military escort, reached the end of 
our peninsula, and then returned with reports con- 
firming those made in 1769, and 1772 by Crespi. 

Sefior Anza, who in 1774 had opened the land route 
between Sonora and California, the next year, under 
orders of the viceroy at Hermosillo, organized expedi- 
tion of colonists, mostly married men, to settle at the 
projected Missions of Santa Clara and San Francisco. 
The news of this order was brought to Monterey in June, 
1775, by the packet "San Carlos," under command 
of Lieutenant Ayala, and he had instructions to survey 
the great bay, which no vessel had yet visited, though 



46 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

six years had elapsed since Crespi and his companions 
had first looked down from the hills upon the inland 
sea and its magnificent entrance, though two sailing 
vessels were regularly employed in the traffic between 
Monterey and San Bias, and though the viceroy had 
sent a vessel in 1774 to explore the coast as far north 
as latitude fifty-five degrees. 

Ayala entered the Golden Gate on the night of 
August 11, spent forty days in the bay, reached 
Monterey on the twenty-second of September, and 
assured Father Junipero that it was not a harbor but 
a multitude of harbors, in which all the navies of 
Spain could play hide and seek. Friar Crespi accom- 
panied by the navigator Heceta (as his name is gener- 
ally spelled), and a military escort, went by land to 
assist Ayala, if necessary, but did not arrive till the 
latter had departed. 

Another expedition was sent to San Francisco from 
Monterey in the following March, and on the twenty- 
second of that month the sites of the projected Mission 
and Presidio, or fort, were selected. 

We learn from the writings of Friar Palou, the 
founder of our Mission, that the site as then selected 
and afterwards occupied, was near a lagoon, the 
situation and size of which he did not accurately de- 
scribe. It had disappeared before 1819, the earliest 
date to which witnesses now living can carry back 
their distinct recollection. A map on a scale of two 
miles to an inch of the end of our peninsula, in the 
report of La Perouse's voyage in 1786, copied probably 



THE MISSION ERA. 47 

from some Spanish chart (his expedition did not visit 
any Californian port save Monterey), shows a lagoon 
with an area of about three hundred acres in the 
neighborhood of Mission Cove, but the lines are so in- 
correct that it is impossible to ascertain from the map 
whether this water was north, south or east of the 
Mission, or how far from it. It was probably a hun- 
dred yards or so to the north-eastward where the 
ground is low. A slight ridge thrown across the little 
valley there would make a lagoon again. Palou, in 
his Notes on New California, speaking of the first visit 
of the Spaniards to San Francisco, says that Portala, 
the commander of the expedition, traveling from the 
southward, along the shore of the bay, came to the 
cove of Llorones (the cry-babies, so styled because the 
Indians there began to weep when they saw the white 
men), and " crossed a creek which is the outlet of a 
larq-c lagoon called the Lagoon of Dolores, and this 
appeared to him a good site for the Mission." The 
oldest residents know nothing of any tradition of a lake 
near the Mission, and we have no explanation for its 
disappearance. 

Sec. 13. First Settlement. All the preliminaries 
having been arranged, the train of founders left Mon- 
terey on the seventeenth of June, 1776, under Friars 
Francisco Palou and Benito Cambon. The married 
civilian settlers numbered seven, and there were seven- 
teen dragoons, also married, with large families, under 
command of Don Jose Moraga. They reached the 
site of the Mission on the twenty-seventh of June, and 



48 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

after spending the night there, moved the next day to 
the Presidio, which was to be the home of all save the 
friars. This was the beginning of the permanent 
settlement of white men on the site of San Francisco. 
Work was immediately commenced on some rude 
buildings, which were ready for occupation on the 
seventeenth of September, and the occasion w T as not 
allowed to pass without a public ceremony. Palou 
blessed the establishment, celebrated a mass, elevated 
and adored the holy cross, and chanted a Te Deum, after 
which Commandant Moraga took possession of the 
Presidio in the name of his royal master, the king of 
all the Spains, and salutes were fired by the dragoons 
and by the artillerymen with cannon, on land and on 
the packet. 

Rivera, who was acting-governor of Upper Cali- 
fornia, had given orders that the Mission of San Fran- 
cisco should not be founded until instructions were 
received from him, and as they had not arrived, Moraga 
went off to explore the rivers emptying into Suisun 
bay ; hut, after crossing the San Joaqain river, he found 
that the country was too extensive for his brief time 
and short supplies, so he turned about and reached 
San Francisco on the seventh of October. Nothing 
had been heard from Rivera, and the friars were im- 
patient to dedicate their Mission, where they had put 
up some brush shelters, and Moraga authorized them 
to make the dedication the next day, which they did. 
A procession, comprising the entire male population, 
soldiers, settlers and sailors, headed by the priests, who 



THE MISSION ERA. 49 

bore aloft the banner of the cross and an image of 
St. Francis, marched from the Presidio to the Mission, 
where the sacred objects were placed on the altar. 
Father Palou, as the senior friar, chanted a mass and 
preached a sermon about the founder of his order, as 
the patron saint of the Mission. At proper intervals 
in the sacred ceremonies, the soldiers and sailors fired 
salutes of musketry. 

The Mission dates from October 8; the military 
establishment from September 17, and the perma- 
nent settlement of the colonists in San Francisco from 
June 28, 1776. In the early history of California the 
Missions were the chief centers of population and in- 
fluence, the Presidios being secondary and, to a con- 
siderable extent, subordinate. The soldiers were sent 
mainly to assist and protect the friars. 

Sec. 14. Mission Authority. The site of the Mis- 
sion of San Francisco was selected because of its 
political and commercial advantages. It was to be 
the nucleus of a seaport town that should serve to 
guard the dominion of Spain in its vicinity. Most of 
the other Missions were founded in the midst of fertile 
valleys, inhabited by large numbers of Indians; no 
other had so little tillable land or so few aborigines 
within a radius of ten miles. Even the few Indians 
living on the end of our peninsula, when Friar Palou 
and his party of founders arrived, soon left. On the 
twelfth of August, a San Mateo tribe attacked a 
rancheria, in or near Bay View valley, and gained 
such a victory that the defeated survivors and the 



50 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

neighboring tribes, afraid to remain, fled to the mount- 
ains north of the Golden Gate, or east of the bay, 
and stayed for several months sending back scouts 
occasionally to report upon the condition of affairs. 
When their accounts became favorable, the fugitives 
returned, but in December, some of them had a fight 
with Spanish soldiers, who killed one and wounded 
another. The consequence was another flight, and 
again they did not come back, till after the lapse of 
several months. It was on the first of June, 1777, 
that the first converts were baptized; three of them 
were received into the church on the same day. They 
did not understand much Spanish, the only tongue in 
which they were instructed, but they could repeat the 
names of the persons of the holy trinity, of the saints, 
and of the leading mysteries of the faith, over after 
the friar; they could rehearse the prayers and a simple 
creed, kneel before the cross and the images, and 
when they could do all these things they were held 
worthy of baptism. 

The Indians soon found that the Mission was not 
without its attractions. The Spaniards, provided with 
potent fire-arms and with horses, soon put an end to 
the petty wars between the tribes, and established a 
feeling of security which had never been felt before; 
relieving the red men from many anxieties and incon- 
veniences* The adobe houses were more comfortable 
than the reed huts. The Mission herds furnished a 
regular supply of nutritious and palatable meat. The 
Mission garden had its pumpkins, melons, beans, 



THE MISSION ERA. 51 

turnips, and potatoes, and after a few years, the Mis- 
sion orchard had its apples, pears, peaches and apricots. 
Wheat and barley were brought from the fields culti- 
vated on the peninsula at a distance of fifteen or twenty 
miles or on the other side of the bay. The friars had 
a large stock of beads, and these were of great value 
in the eyes of the savages. Cloth and blankets from 
Mexico, or woven -at the Mission, furnished better 
material for clothing than anything used by the In- 
dians before the settlement of the white men amonsf 
them. 

Sec. 15. Indian Women. The influence of the 
women was used to strengthen the Missions. In their 
savage condition, the squaws were most abject slaves. 
If any work was especially tedious or disagreeable, 
they had to do it. They were not entitled to respect 
or sympathy under any circumstances, and the man 
who would put himself on a level with his sister, his 
mother, or his wife, was regarded as disreputable. The 
friars took the squaws under their protection, gave as 
much attention and instruction to them as to the men, 
treated them with a consideration which they had 
never received before, overthrew polygamy and its 

grading influences, and shielded them against the 
brutality of the men. The mode of life at the Mis- 
sion, and the improvement in the dwellings, food, cloth- 
ing and treatment in case of illness, were all of more 
relative benefit to the women than to the men. Thus 
their favor was won and control was obtained over the 
children who held the future in their hands. 



52 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

It must not be supposed, however, that the Indian 
women occupied a high position at the Mission. They 
were more happily situated than their sisters in the 
entirely savage state; but their fate was not enviable. 
Their clothing, food and dwellings were very rude, 
and their ordinary dress was nothing but a short, 
woolen j)etticoat. A piece of colored cotton to tie 
about the neck was a rarity. A single blanket served 
for bedding, and occasionally for a cloak. The head, 
the feet, the upper part of the body and the limbs 
were usually bare. The only article of kitchen fur- 
niture was a water-tight basket, made of wiregrass 
that grew on swampy land. When any boiled dish 
was needed, the material to be cooked was put in the 
basket with water, and heat was applied by throwing 
in red-hot stones. Vessels of metal or crockery for 
cooking or eating did not belong to the average house- 
hold at the Mission. There was no mill to grind 
grain for the Indians. The women had to mash it on 
a flat stone, or grind it in a stone mortar by a slow 
process that took a considerable part of their time. 
There was no education for the women. They never 
were taught to read or to become skillful in the pro- 
duction of any article to which much value was at- 
tached. They learned to spin and weave coarse wool; 
but the loom was clumsy and slow, and the cloth 
rough. In the dwelling there was no table-furniture 
save a knife; no table, no bedstead, no bed-clothing 
save the blanket of each person, no chair, no glass in 
the windows, no chimney, and no wooden floor. In 



THE MISSION ERA. 53 

such a rude condition of society, it was impossible 
that woman could occupy a high position. 

The unmarried women were locked up every night 
under charge of old women, and were always care- 
fully guarded. As they were fewer in number than 
the men, the friars were careful to give the de- 
sirable girls as wives to the industrious of the young 
men, who thus had strong motives to be faithful. 

Sec. 16. Indian Men. The life of the Indian men 
was not luxurious. Their working-dress was nothing 
but a cloth round the loins, and a shirt; their head, 
legs and feet being bare. The vaqueros or herdsmen, 
however, and the captains, were provided with trow- 
sers and shoes. Some of the boys were taught to read 
and to sing from notes, but they were very few; the 
great majority were left in the most abject ignorance. 

The Indians were treated like children. They were 
not allowed to own property, to cultivate land on their 
own account, to control their children, to select their 
occupations or place of residence, to choose their cap- 
tains, or to determine the times when they would 
work or play, nor could they leave the Mission with- 
out the consent of the Friar Superior. The red con- 
verts, as well as the wild Indians, were designated in 
the Spanish speech as gente sin razon, people without 
reason or senseless; while the whites, or those con- 
taining Spanish blood, were gente de razon, or reason- 
ing beings. This contemptuous title for the Indians 
was common in conversation and in official documents, 
and was thus impressed upon the common mind. If 



54 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the Indians refused to work or to attend religious 
service, they were not secure against the lash, and we 
are even told that sometimes the goad (a stick with a 
sharp iron point) was used to keep order in church, 
the beadle reaching over with it to punch the fellow 
who did not show a proper spirit of devotion. 

While the red men were believed to be very near 
the brutes, intellectually, and were looked upon as in- 
competent to take proper care of themselves, there 
was little aversion on the part of the Spaniards or 
Mexicans to association or inter-marriage with them; 
and a large majority of the native Californians of 
Spanish blood are the descendants of Indian women. 
The numerous ties of influential relationship thus 
established did not suffice to prevent the rapid decrease 
of the pure Indian blood. No red man living at the 
Mission of San Francisco founded a family that still 
exists, or ever distinguished himself sufficiently to de- 
serve special mention of his name in local history. As 
a general rule, the Indians had no family name, as if 
there was no expectation that they would leave de- 
scendants who would feel any interest in their ancestry. 
The red men are mentioned in the church records 
simply as Juan, Pedro, or Pablo. 

Sec. 17. Savage Life. The male Indians near the 
Mission, before coming under the influence of the friars, 
went naked, except that in cold weather they daubed 
themselves over with mud, which they washed off 
when the sun became warm. Acorns, hazel nuts, 
wild seeds, the amole or soap plant, mussels, clams, 



THE MISSION ERA. 55 

wild geese and ducks, seals and occasionally a putrid 
whale landed on the beach, supplied most of their food. 
Sec. 18. Convert Life. Of the converts Palou 
says : 

We have at this Mission baptized three infants, born within 
two months, all children of one Gentile inanb}' three sisters, his 
wives, and not content with this, he also had his mother-in-law 
for a wife; but it pleased God that he and his four wives should 
be converted, and he remained alone with the eldest sister, who 
had been his first wife, and the others, after their baptism, were 
married to other men according to the Roman ritual; and with 
this example, and with that which is preached and explained to 
them, they are abandoning polygamy and reducing themselves 
to our holy Catholic faith, and all those reduced live in the 
town within hearing of the bell, going twice daily to the church 
to repeat the Christian doctrine, supporting themselves by the 
harvests which they grow of wheat, maize, beans, and so forth. 
They already gather fruits of the Castilian peaches, nectarines, 
pomegranates, and so forth, which were planted in the begin- 
ning. All are dressed in clothes obtained by the Mexican 
fathers on account of the public treasury, and as gifts from vari- 
ous benefactors. 

Sec. 19. Indian Work. At sunrise all the peo- 
ple near the Mission were summoned to mass by the 
bell, and attendance was compulsory. After mass 
came breakfast, and then all the men and the unmar- 
ried women were required to work till eleven o'clock. 
A rest of three hours was allowed at noon, after which 
they worked till the afternoon mass, an hour before 
sunset. The chief occupations of the men were 
plowing, sowing, harrowing, harvesting, threshing and 
hauling grain, herding the cattle, breaking horses, 
cutting and bringing wood for fuel, building houses, 



56 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

baking tiles and weaving. There were a few carpen- 
ters, blacksmiths, tanners and shoemakers at every 
Mission, but they knew little of their trades, and had 
a scanty supply of bad tools. 

The processes of agricultural labor were extremely 
rude. The plow was shod with a joiece of iron a 
little larger than a man's hand, and it scratched the 
ground but did not turn a furrow nor even cut one. 
It was drawn by one yoke of oxen and the yoke was 
tied to their horns with strips of rawhide. One plow 
made a little scratch, another followed in the same 
track, and then another, and six plows were required 
to do as much work, though not so well, as one Ameri- 
can would with an American plow. Horses were 
not used for draft purposes; and there was not a light 
wagon in the country. The only vehicle was the 
carreta, or cart, with wheels of solid wood six inches 
wide at the tire and eiofht or ten inches at the hub. 
The carreta was twice as heavy as its load, and it 
sometimes moved faster than a mile an hour. The 
harrow was a branch of a tree; and grain was cut 
with a sickle or pulled up by the roots, and threshed 
by treading it out with horses, and separated from the 
chaff by throwing it up into the air on a windy day. 

Sec. 20. No Education. The submission of the 
Indians to the friars; their acceptance of bagtism; their 
repetition of the names of the mysteries, divine persons 
and saints, their regular attendance at worship; their 
observance of the disciplinary rules, even if under 
compulsion; their freedom from all heretical ideas and 



THE MISSION ERA. 57 

their veneration for the sacred images and other 
emblems of the Catholic faith, were considered all that 
was necessary to fit them for full membership in the 
church. 

The friars did not restrict themselves to persuasion 
in getting converts after they had brought all the 
tribes in the near vicinity of the Mission under their 
power; they sent out soldiers with tame Indians to 
bring in others. Such an expedition was despatched 
from San Francisco nearly every winter in the early 
part of this century, to the foot-hills of the Sierra 
Nevada, and sometimes returned with a hundred or 
more captives, who had been surprised in their ranch- 
erias. To go out for a purpose was styled ir a la 
conquista, " to go out conquering;" or hacer reducciones, 
"to make reductions" for the cause of Jesus. The 
attempts to catch subjects for conversion in the sum- 
mer were usually failures, and were not always suc- 
cessful in the winter. While Beechey was in San 
Francisco bay with his exploring vessel in 1826, a 
party from the Mission of Santa Clara were beaten 
off in an attack on a rancheria in the Sierra Nevada 
with a loss of thirty-four men, and a new expedition 
sent out to the same place lost forty-one men, but 
captured forty-four Indians, mostly women and chil- 
dren. Sometimes the wild Indians came to the Mis- 
sions voluntarily, under persuasion of their relatives; 
and often the harboring of fugitives, or the stealing of 
cattle from the Mission was the cause of attack on 
wild tribes, whose proximity and hostility to the Mis- 
sions were frequently the cause of trouble. 



58 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 21. Number of Indians. The increase in the 
number of Indians under the control of the Mission 
was due to the introduction of new stock from with- 
out, and not to the increase from within by the nat- 
ural surplus of births over deaths. The Indians of 
California did not thrive anywhere under the care of 
the friars; and perhaps there was no Mission where 
they throve less than at San Francisco. The women 
gave birth to few children, and reared four boys for 
three girls. They must have discriminated in the 
treatment of the two sexes. Nothing but deliberate 
intention entertained by many mothers could account 
for the small proportion of girls. Such a purpose to 
check the increase of women has often been observed 
among savages; and unless we suppose its existence 
at the Mission, we cannot account for the excess of 
males. 

Very soon after the white men established them- 
selves in the country, the Indians began to diminish. 
Various destructive diseases, unknown before, made 
their appearance. The small pox raged with fearful 
violence ; the. measles carried off many adults as well 
as children, and an infection caught from the soldiers 
spread like a slow but sure poison. There was no 
physician in the territory, nor any intelligent medical 
attendance for any of the new diseases. Vaccination 
was practiced on a few of the whites, but was not 
applied to the red men, nor was the more convenient 
and yet effective inoculation tried. The food was 
sometimes scanty and not always wholesome ; and in- 



THE MISSION ERA. 59 

jurious effects were attributed to the practice of 
locking up the unmarried adults at night in close, 
filthy chambers. 

Sec. 22. Great Mortality. Whatever may have 
been the causes of the mortality among the Indians 
of the Mission of San Francisco, there is no room for 
doubt about the results. The deaths, instead of being- 
four for each hundred persons, as they are in sickly 
seasons among highly civilized people, numbered from 
ten to twenty annually, and sometimes even more. 
The females, instead of being as numerous as the 
males, were usually fewer by one fourth or a larger 
proportion. The women should have reared three 
children each on an average to prevent a decrease of 
the population, but they did not rear two. About 
half the children baptized were born of Gentile par- 
ents, or of parents recently brought to the Mission. 

It is a mistake to suppose that the Missions were 
prosperous institutions until their secularization. They 
were not even self-supporting. They were for a long 
time a burden on the government. The friars com- 
plained of serious inconvenience when their salaries of 
four hundred dollars each (spent usually not for their 
personal advantage, but for the purchase of articles 
needed by the Missions) were cut off by the civil war 
in [Mexico; and though there was a steady increase in 
the number of Indians under control of the friars 
until about 181.5, there was a rapid decrease of the 
total number of Indians within reach of the Missions, 
indicating the probability that the race would in a 



60 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

few centuries disappear, as it has since disappeared in 
nearly all those districts of California once occupied 
by the Missions. There could, of course, be no true 
prosperity of the Indians with a steady and rapid de- 
crease of their number. Such a decline is undeniable. 
We might suspect that there was some physical weak- 
ness in the Indian blood, but no proof can be found 
to sustain such a supposition. The descendants of the 
Indian women who married Spaniards became a 
strong, large, healthy, and remarkably prolific race, 
with pleasant countenances and respectable capacities. 
Those Indians who never came to the Missions were 
healthy and strong, and, though not very prolific, did 
not commence to die off rapidly till after the Ameri- 
cans took possession of their country. 

The result was the same at most of the other Mis- 
sions. Not an Indian remains at San Rafael, Sonoma, 
San Jose or Santa Clara; and those who survive about 
the Missions farther south do no credit as a class to 
the instruction given to their fathers. But, however 
defective may have been the system of the friars, we 
have the most conclusive evidence that the weakening 
and overthrow of the Spanish authority, the seculariza- 
tion of the Missions, and the American conquest, were 
more disastrous to the aborigines of California. They 
were happier when the Missions were at the summit 
of their power than ever afterward. From the time 
when they first heard of the rebellion for independence 
in Mexico until now, nearly every political change 
affecting their condition has been a change seriously 



THE MISSION ERA. 61 

for the worse as to them. If the Missions did not 
succeed in establishing a high and permanent civiliza- 
tion amonof the red men of California, the blame must 
not be thrown upon the Franciscan friars. The Jesuit 
Missions in Lower California, after the labors of three 
quarters of a century, had not secured better results ; 
and the reservations maintained by the federal govern- 
ment in this state, for the last twenty years, have 
been miserable failures. The Franciscan experiment 
does not suffer by comparison with the influence of 
the Jesuits, or of the Mexican or American politicians 
upon the aborigines of the coast, and may even be said, 
unsatisfactory as it was, to have been a relative suc- 
cess. 

It was perhaps well that the Indians were not capa- 
ble, under such instructions as they received, of rais- 
ing themselves to the level of Spanish civilization. It 
would have been a great misfortune for California to 
have been occupied in 1846 by a dense Indian popula- 
tion, knowing just enough to support and defend them- 
selves, ignorant, fanatical, idle, and hostile to foreigners 
and foreign ideas, manners, machinery and mode of 
working. There w r ould have been little room for 
Americans, and the few, who would have come, would 
have found themselves powerless unless they submitted 
themselves to base prejudices, and thus sacrificed a 
large part of their superiority. The state might have 
struggled for centuries before its inhabitants reached 
the highest level of civilization, as they have now 
done in a single generation. 



62 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The number of the Indians was never ascertained, 
or officially estimated under Spanish or Mexican do- 
minion, but several early travelers speak in vague 
terms of multitudes in some of the larger valleys. As 
they had no agriculture, commerce, manufacturing 
industry, regular supply of wholesome food, or secure 
peace, and they were exposed to the occasional, if not 
the frequent, ravages of war, pestilence and famine, so 
the land could not maintain a denser pojDulation, and it 
probably never had more than one hundred thousand 
or one hundred and fifty thousand aboriginal inhabi- 
tants. 

Sec. 23. Friars. It was the rule that there 
should be two friars at each Mission; the elder, as su- 
perior in authority, to conduct the worship on im- 
portant occasions, to instruct and govern the Indians, 
manage the finances and keep the records; the younger 
to supervise the manual labor. Every year the Supe- 
rior made a report of the number of the baptisms, mar- 
riages, births, deaths, neat cattle, horses, sheep, goats, 
swine, and bushels of grain harvested, to the Pres- 
ident of the Missions, at Monterey; and he compiled 
a table of all the Missions under him for the Vice- 
roy of Mexico, who transmitted a copy to the King 
at Madrid. The feeling between the Indians and the 
friars was usually a very friendly one. The friar 
when he met an Indian said to him, " Love God, my 
son;" and the reply w r as, " Love God, father." 

Eight or ten soldiers were stationed at each Mis- 
sion. One was always on guard in front of the main 



THE MISSION ERA. 03 

entrance; another was usually out as herdsman with 
the horses and cattle; and when a friar was called 
away from a Mission for any transient purpose, or 
sent a letter, a soldier served as companion or mes- 
senger. 

The red men were spoken of as wards, who owned 
the property of the Mission, and the friars were the 
guardians, who had absolute control of the persons 
and property of their wards. Humble and poor as 
the Franciscan order claimed to be, the Franciscans in 
California held and enjoyed nearly all the power and 
wealth of the country, such as they were. Their au- 
thority over the Indians was despotic, but it was not 
used harshly. Every Indian was required to work, 
but the labor was not arduous nor long continued. 
Though the friars kept the best of everything for 
themselves, the best was not very good. They dressed 
meanly, had a simple table, and plain apartments. 

Of the friars who had charge of the Mission of San 
Francisco, we know little beyond the names, with 
the exception of Francisco Palou, who reached higher 
office than any of his associates, ending his career as 
principal of the order in Mexico. Although he had 
little education, and lived in the mental atmosphere 
of the thirteenth instead of that of the latter part of 
the seventeenth century, still he had good powers of 
observation and an active mind, and was probably the 
ablest of all the Franciscans who came to California. 
He was the only one who wrote for the press, and 
he has left the most enduring and accessible evidences 



G4 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of his capacity. His biography of Junipero Serra 
enables us to see nearly as much of his own as of his 
hero's character, and entitles him to as much admira- 
tion. This book and his Notes on New California, 
have a permanent historical interest, for California at 
least. 

The later friars wrote little, save the annual statistical 
reports, and nothing from which we can obtain dis- 
tinct ideas of their character or influence. They fur- 
nished no other material for the historian or antiqua- 
rian. Soon after the death of Serra, which occurred 
in 1787, Palou returned to Mexico, and Cambon, his 
younger associate, became the Superior friar at San 
Francisco, but was soon superseded by Danti; and he 
by Abella, who served for twenty years, commencing 
in 1797. Altimira was in charge when Mexico de- 
clared her independence, but not liking the new 
dominion, he left the country. Estenaga, who had 
been his junior associate, succeeded him, and was 
alone for twelve years, remaining until after the secu- 
larization. 

Sec. 24. Mission Buildings, Materials for a his- 
tory of the Mission buildings are very scanty. The 
adobe church, erected in the last century, is pre- 
sumptively the same structure which still stands' on 
Dolores street, near Sixteenth. Ten years is not an 
unreasonable period to assume as the interval between 
the foundation of the Mission and the final consecra- 
tion of its permanent house of worship. The work 
was nearly all done by the Indians, who had to be 



THE MISSION ERA. G5 

previously converted, conciliated, and instructed in 
Spanish and in various useful arts unknown to them 
in their savage state. The making of a supply of 
adobes sufficient for such a building was a simple pro- 
cess, but it required a combination and persistence in 
labor beyond the experience of the red men of Cali- 
fornia. It was necessary, also, to get timbers for 
rafters, and even if we suppose that these were noth- 
ing but rude poles, to place them on the ground was 
a serious task. Even as late as 1820, not a good 
wagon or a good boat had heen made, nor even pur- 
chased, for ordinary business purposes, by any Span- 
ish Californian at San Francisco ; and it is probable 
that many of the timbers used in building in the last 
century were transported from the forests on the 
shoulders of men. 

Other matters required attention before the build- 
ing of the church. The erection of dwellings for the 
friars, soldiers and converts, the cultivation of the 
ground and the herding of the cattle, took precedence. 
All this went very slowly, because of the absolute 
ignorance of the Indians, of whom there were for 
years very few. The first converts were made in 1777, 
when three were baptized ; and we have no report of 
the numbers from that time until seven years later, 
when there were two hundred and sixty red Chris- 
tians. The average increase was about thirty in a 
year, and not more than one in four was an adult 
male competent to do much work. If the Indians 
learned to speak Spanish, to break horses, to herd 



66 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

cattle, to plow, sow, reap and thresh, to make and lay- 
adobes, and to cut and hew timber, besides building 
their dwellings and their church, in ten years, they 
must have been driven harder than it was the custom 
of the friars to drive them in later times. 

The church, when first built, was doubtless thatched 
with flags or tules, which could be obtained without 
trouble and supported on light poles; whereas the 
molding and burning of tiles were comparatively ab- 
struse arts, and the tiles when made required a strong 
framework to bear their weight. 

We do not find any account that the Mission church 
at San Francisco was ever rebuilt or seriously injured. 
An earthquake in 1808 shattered the houses at the 
presidio, but the annual report of Friar Abella for that 
year mentions no damage at the Mission. In 1812, 
the church at San Juan Capistrano was thrown down, 
and the buildings at Purisima, Santa Inez, San 
Buenaventura and Santa Barbara injured; but San 
Francisco was spared. So it was again in 1818, when 
Santa Clara suffered so much by earthquake that a 
new church was erected there. 

Sec. 25. Mission Income. There was an average 
increase of about thirty Indians annually at San Fran- 
cisco, from its foundation for nearly forty years till 
1813, when the number was one thousand two hundred 
and five; and then there was a decrease at about the 
same rate till the secularization in 1835. The most 
remarkable break in the regularity of the figures oc- 
curred between 1822, when there were nine hundred 



THE MISSION ERA. 67 

and fifty eight Indians, and 1823, when only two hun- 
dred were left. In 1808, eiofhtv-four Indians fled and 
never were brought back; and in 1823 so many fled 
that not enough remained to take care of the Mission 
property. Part of the decrease in 1822 was caused 
by the transfer of Indians to the new Missions of San 
Rafael and Sonoma. The wealth of the Mission rose 
and fell with the number of its subjects. The follow- 
ing table shows how many Indians, neat cattle, horses 



o 



many 



and sheep, and bushels of grain in annual crop, it had 
in various years of its existence : 

Years 1183 1793 1804 1813 1822 1832. 

Indians 215 704 1103 1205 958 204 

Cattle 308 2700 8120 9270 4049 5000 

Sheep 183 2300 10400 10120 8830 3500 

Horses 31 314 730 622 806 1000 

Grain 2474 6114 4124 691 

Before 1815, the Mission produced little that had 
any salable value. The only vessels admitted into 
the ports of the country for purposes of trade belonged 
to Spain, and they were so slow and so badly managed 
that the freight left no margin for profit in exportation. 
It was not until after the independence of Mexico had 
been established that the exportation of hides and 
tallow became an extensive business. About 1840 a 
ranchero could sell one fourth of his neat cattle every 
year, getting five dollars from each animal slaughtered, 
two dollars for its hide and three dollars for its tallow. 
The management of the Missions was not so strict as 
that of individuals, and the hides and tallow which 



68 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the former could dispose of annually was as much as 
they could get by killing one seventh of their neat 
cattle. The Mission of San Francisco thus could ob- 
tain from three thousand five hundred dollars to five 
thousand dollars a year from its hides and tallow 
annually, after 1822, and it had no other merchantable 
article to spare. It needed all its grain for home con- 
sumption, and horses and sheep were ordinarily not 
salable. The pay for its exports was a small sum to 
purchase imports for several hundred persons, and it 
was besides usually given in merchandise not of the 
best quality, and at high prices. 

Sec. 26. Decay of Missions. The rebellion that 
broke out in Mexico in 1810 soon made itself felt in 
California, From 1811 to 1818 the government failed 
to pay the four hundred dollars, promised annually to 
each friar, and the government vessels which had 
brought the imports and carried away the exports 
ceased tomake their trips regularly. The revolutionary 
and anti-ecclesiastical spirit of the time declared that 
the Missions ought to be secularized, and the friars 
and the people understood that this idea would be 
made the basis of a law at some future period. The 
civil and military officials, who had never agreed very 
well with the friars, became more antagonistic to 
them; and the latter, feeling less secure, were less con- 
tented and less zealous. The friars born in Spain were 
attached to the Spanish crown. They hated the rev- 
olution and the institutions which it had established. 
The new government, finding that the priests x and 



THE MISSION ERA. GO 

friars were not friendly to it, became hostile to them; 
and one measure of hostility was secularization, which 
had been demanded by the Spanish Cortes as early as 
1813. It meant that the Indians should be taken 
from the control of the friars and converted into free 
and independent citizens, with full power to own 
property, select their place of residence, and direct 
their own conduct ; that each head of a family should 
be entitled to the gift of as much land as he could 
cultivate ; that the herds and tools and other personal 
property of each Mission should be divided among its 
Indians; and that the surplus land should be given to 
white colonists. While secularization was considered 
just and patriotic, it was also in favor with the poli- 
ticians as a measure that would reduce the political 
power and money resources of the clergy. 



70 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE VILLAGE ERA. 

Section 27. Secularization. The Mexican Con- 
gress, assuming that the people were competent to 
maintain an orderly republican government, and be- 
lieving that the Mission Indians of California, most of 
whom had been born under the dominion and bred 
under the instruction of the friars, must be competent 
for the duties of civilized life and equal political priv- 
ileges, on August 17, 1833, passed a bill' announcing 
that the government would proceed to secularize the 
Missions of Upper and Lower California, but making 
no provision for the time or manner of carrying the 
intention into effect. 

The matter was thus left to the discretion of the 
executive department, and on August 9, 1834, Gov- 
ernor Figueroa, of California, acting under instructions 
from the President of the Republic, issued a decree 
that he would, in August, 1835, convert ten of the 
Missions into j^ueblos or towns. These ten were not 
then nor afterwards named. The friars at the Mis- 
sions were to be deprived of all control over the Mis- 
sion property, which should be placed in charge of an 
administrator, who should give to every adult male In- 
dian a tract of twenty-eight acres; and his fair share of 
one half of the domestic animals and tools of the Mis- 
sion; the other half to be held for the benefit of the 
government. 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 71 

Subsequently, Gumecindo Flores was appointed 
administrator of the Mission of San Francisco; but 
between the time of the announcement that the secu- 
larization would be made and his appointment, many 
of the cattle had been driven off; the Indians, left 
without control, went away; and soon there was noth- 
ing to divide and nobody to receive the dividends. 
We have no precise account of the manner in which 
Flores administered his trust. We know, however, 
that in the brief period of forty years since the secu- 
larization, all the Indian tribes of the San Francisco 
peninsula, so far at least as the pure blood is con- 
cerned, have disappeared from the face of the earth. 
Immediately upon the announcement that the friars 
were to be deprived of their power, cultivation was 
neglected; and the Indians, instead of proving their 
capacity to become independent and prosperous citi- 
zens, wasted what little property was given to them, 
and fell into idle or dissolute habits. Some became 
the servants of rancheros; others went to the mount- 
ains and ran wild; and a few remained about the Mis- 
sion in beggary, or on its verge. Such were the re- 
sults of emancipating the Indians of San Francisco 
from the subjection in which they had been bred. 

When the friars were deprived of their authority 
by the order of secularization, twenty-one Missions 
were in existence, all near the coast, reaching from 
San Diego to Sonoma, five hundred miles in a direct 
line, but the average distance between neighboring? 
Missions by the roads was forty miles, or a day's 



72 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ride. Their jurisdictions met, so that the whole coast 
from Sonoma southward, was considered to be occu- 
pied. The only towns were Los Angeles, Branciforte 
(near Santa Cruz), and San Jose, and the entire white 
population was estimated to number five thousand, 
of whom all, save perhaps two score, were of Spanish 
blood. The Mexicans relied on their herds for sup- 
port, lived with little effort or care, and generally knew 
nothing of schools, books, or newspapers. 

Sec. 28. Land Grants. The private land titles of 
the peninsula of San Francisco date from 1835, pre- 
vious to which time the Mission held control for thirty 
miles southward from the Golden Gate, meeting the 
old domain of the Mission of Santa Clara at San 
Francisquito creek. Although great abuses were 
practiced in the overthrow, or, as it was officially 
called, the " secularization " of the Missions, the 
measure was demanded by sound statesmanship. 
Without it there was no hope for the progress of the 
country. It was required as a matter of justice to 
the Spanish- American settlers, whose fathers had 
been induced to come to California in 1773 with the 
promise that they should be raised to the position of 
independent colonists ; but after a lapse of sixty years 
they, or rather their children, were still the tenants at 
will of the Mission, with little chance of support save 
such as they could find at the ruined presidio. The 
government had forbidden them to own land, gave 
them no encouragement to build houses, provided no 
pasture for their cattle, discouraged the sale of their 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 73 

produce to foreign vessels, and provided no market for 
their labor. Such was the situation of the Spanish- 
Americans, or, as they were called, gente de razon — - 
" people of reason " — on the peninsula of San Fran- 
cisco in 1835. To these citizens, the official announce- 
ment in that year that the Missions were to be 
secularized was very welcome, and they soon began to 
apply for grants of land. The residents at the Mis- 
sion, most of them formerly soldiers at the presidio, 
were the grantees of a large part of the land on the 
peninsula. In some cases years elapsed after the 
first application before the grant was made in absolute 
terms. 

The first title issued for land on our peninsula, was 
that of the Rancho Lacuna de la Merced — two thou- 
sand two hundred and twenty acres — given in 1835 
to J. A. Galindo. The San Pedro rancho, eiodit 
thousand nine hundred and twenty-six acres, about 
four miles south of lake Merced, was given to F. De 
Haro, later in the same year. The Buri-Buri ran- 
cho, of fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
three acres, south of the San Bruno mountain, was 
given to Francisco Sanchez. It was in 1840 that 
Jose C. Bernal received the grant of the Potrero 
Viejo, including Hunter's Point and the basin of 
Islais creek, with an area of four thousand four hun- 
dred and forty-six acres ; Jacob P. Leese, the only 
foreigner among the grantees of ranchos on our penin- 
sula, in 1841 obtained the Visitacion rancho, of eight 
thousand eight hundred and eighty acres, adjoining 



74 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Bernal on the south ; and the San Miguel grant, of 
four thousand four hundred and forty-three acres, in- 
cluding the Mission hills and extending southward 
nearly four miles, was given in 1845 to J. J. Noe. 

Beside these grants, which were confirmed and have 
become the foundation of the present titles, various 
other grants were solicited, but the titles were not 
perfected. Angel Island was given in 1838 to A. M. 
Osio, but he never occupied it and the claim was re- 
jected. The archives contain the petition of Joaquin 
Pina for a square league of land at Point Lobos, and 
also a favorable report from a local official to the effect 
that the tract was vacant and could properly be 
granted; but no grant was made, and the claim was 
never presented to the courts. Francisco Guerrero 
and H. D. Fitch made an. application on the thirteenth 
of May, 1846, for two leagues and a half west of 
Yerba Buena, but before action could be taken the 
country had been conquered. A petition by Benito 
Diaz for a league of land at the presidio was in the 
same condition. F. De Haro obtained leave to pasture 
his cattle on the potrero, including several thousand 
acres between the Mission creek and Mission cove, 
on the north and Islais cove on the south, and his 
heirs laid claim to the land as theirs in fee-simple, but 
the United States supreme court rejected the title. 
One of the most troublesome claims to land, within the 
city limits, was that of Peter Sherreback; purporting 
to be a grant for two thousand two hundred acres, 
seven hundred and twenty yards square, including most 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 75 

of the land bounded by Third, Sixth, Howard and Bran- 
nan streets. The title was confirmed by the United 
States district court in 1859, but a new hearing was 
granted, and the testimony indicative of fraud in 
the matter of the boundaries was so strong that the 
claim was abandoned. 

A third class of claims consisted of those rejected 
under suspicion or proof of fraud. No records pertain- 
ing to them were found in the archives. Among these 
were a grant for Goat Island, purporting to have been 
made to Juan Castro in 1838; a grant for a square 
league west of Yerba Buena, purporting to have 
been made to Fernando Marchena, on the fourteenth 
of August, 1844; the Santillan and the Limantour 
grants. The Santillan, based on a paper dated on the 
tenth of February, 1846, conveyed to Prudencio San- 
tillan, at that time parish, priest at the Mission, all 
the vacant lands that formerly belonged to the Mis- 
sion, south of Yerba Buena and the presidio. Under 
the Mexican customs, priests were considered incompe- 
tent to become grantees of ranchos, and this grant was 
unheard of until four years after its date. The federal 
supreme court rejected it as a fraud. J. Y. Liman- 
tour presented to the United States land commission 
two papers purporting to grant lands within the 
present limits of the city of San Francisco. One, 
dated on the twenty-seventh of February, 1843, gave 
to him the tract between California street and Mission 
creek, extending out to the westward till it made two 
leagues; and, also, a second tract of two leagues, west 



76 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of Yerba Buena. The other gave to him Goat and 
Alcatraz islands. Both documents were proved to be 
forgeries. It is worthy of remark, that the fraudulent 
claims of Santillan and Limantour covered about 
twelve thousand acres of the same land, and within 
the limits of both claims, Sherreback wanted his two 
thousand two hundred acres. The invalid Mexican 
grants were three deep over a considerable area. 

Sec. 29. Pueblo. The Mexican congress had shown 
its purpose in the colonization and secularization laws 
and other enactments to encourage and aid the 
establishment of a pueblo, or town, near every Mission; 
and there was no Mission in California where a pueblo 
was more urgently demanded by public considerations 
than that of San Francisco. Although the population 
was not so large as at most other Missions, still it had 
already reached a respectable figure, and there was a 
certainty of a steady increase in the extensive and 
fertile valleys round the bay, and the value of the 
harbor for commerce and incidentally for military and 
naval purposes was universally admitted. The pueblos, 
which Gov. Figueroa intended to found, and which 
the law contemplated, were to be composed of white 
men and Indians together. Hed men who had been 
bred at the Missions, and were disposed to live among 
the whites, and accept the mode of life common among 
them, were to be recognized as full citizens, with all 
the rights to demand lots in town and ranchos in the 
country, enjoyed by any other class of citizens. There 
was no provision for a white pueblo or an Indian 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 77 

pueblo; nor any discrimination in political rights on 
the ground of race, color or previous relation to the 
authority of the Missions. The Mission Indians were 
to be raised from the class of gente sin razon to gente de 
razon, from unreasoning to reasoning beings. 

This purpose failed throughout California. No 
political or military leader attempted to secure to the 
Indians the rights offered to them by the law, and the 
reason was that they were so weak intellectually that 
the attempt would certainly have failed, and their ad 
vocate would have ruined himself without doing any 
good to them. 

The governor who had announced secularization and 
promised the establishment of pueblos at ten of the 
Missions, died in September, 1835, before he could 
carry out his plans. After his death, the new gov- 
ernor felt less regard for the purposes of the law in 
reference to pueblos and the Indians, and in conse- 
quence of repeated revolutions, the business of the 
administration was in great confusion. 

No order was ever issued establishing a pueblo 
at San Francisco, but it was assumed that one was to 
be established, though there was a question whether 
it was to be at the Mission or at Yerba Buena, or 
whether it was to include both places. In the sum- 
mer of 1835, Wm. A. Richardson, an Englishman 
who had settled in California in 1822, and had made 
his home at Saucelito, moved to Yerba Buena, set up 
a tent on the place now known as No. 811 Dupont 
street, and went into the business of collecting hides 



78 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and tallow from various places on the bay. The Mis- 
sion of San Francisco and that of San Jose had each 
had a little thirty -ton schooner, which had been built 
by the Russians at Fort Ross. These schooners, after 
having been in service some time, got leaky, and sank 
in the creeks of their respective Missions. Both had 
been abandoned, when Richardson made his appear- 
ance, and offered to raise their schooners and carry the 
freight of the Missions free for the use of the vessels 
and Indian crews. The offer was accepted, and Rich- 
ardson had become regularly established in business 
before the end of the year. He charged one dollar 
per bag of tallow, and twelve and one half cents per 
hide for bringing those articles from the various land- 
ings on the bay to Yerba Buena cove, where they 
were transferred to American vessels, which had pre- 
viously anchored near the presidio or the Mission. 
Richardson induced them to come to Yerba Buena. 

Acting under the general law of Mexico, which per- 
mitted towns to select their officials, the people at the 
Mission, on the twenty-seventh of November, 1835, 
held an election for alcalde, and chose J. J. Estudillo 
to the place of alcalde for a term of one year, with 
power to grant lots within the limits of the town, 
which limits had not been and were not afterwards 
authoritatively defined under Mexican law. The vil- 
lage was usually called Dolores, which was also the 
name of the creek, and was frequently substituted for 
Assis in the name of the Mission, indifferently called 
San Francisco de Assis or San Francisco de Dolores, 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 79 

to distinguish it from San Francisco Solano, the name 
of the Mission at Sonoma. Dolores is the Spanish 
for sorrows or sufferings, and is a favorite name in the 
Catholic church of Spain. 

Sec. 30. Leese. In the winter of 1835-36, Jacob 
P. Leese, an American then residing in Los Angeles, 
and engaged in business there, was advised by some 
shipmasters trading on the coast to establish a store 
and commission house at San Francisco, where they 
thought he might thrive. The annual exports in- 
cluded twenty thousand hides, and two million pounds 
of tallow, and the ships lost much time for the want 
of some one to collect these articles. There was no 
store or commission house at the place; the business 
was increasing, and an American could succeed better 
than a person of any other nationality, because the 
ships were mostly from Boston and New York. 

Mr. Leese determined to follow the advice of his 
friends. In March, he went to Monterey, commu- 
nicated his plans to his friends Nathan Spear and 
Wm. Hinckley, and induced them to join him in a 
partnership to establish a store. He returned to Los 
Angeles, where he closed up his business, and then 
started for San Francisco, which he had not yet 
visited. 

Shortly before he left Los Angeles, the first instance 
of lynch law in California occurred there. A young 
married woman named Verdugo deserted her husband 
for another man, whom she loved better. Seiior Ver- 
dugo applied to an alcalde for an order that his wife 



80 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

should live with him, and, after a deliberate examina- 
tion, the order was granted. Thereupon Verdugo 
took his wife on his horse and started for his ranch, 
which he never reached. He was murdered on the 
road by the wife and her paramour. The proof was 
conclusive; the circumstances were revolting. Pop- 
ular indignation rose to a great height. There was a 
general demand for prompt punishment appropriate 
to the offense. That could be obtained by lynch law 
only. The Californian courts of jurisdiction in capital 
cases never had taken decisive action; a case intrusted 
to them never came to a decision. Homicides, though 
frequent, were never punished by law. If the murder 
of Verdugo should go unpunished, there could be no 
security. The people who spoke thus, therefore, took 
the law into their own hands, tried the offenders, con- 
victed them, and sentenced them to death. Every- 
thing was done in a very deliberate manner, and with 
every respect for the moral rights of the accused. A 
careful record was kept of the proceedings, and after 
the conviction, the accused were kept for two days, 
waiting for a priest to come from San Gabriel to con- 
fess them. The alcaldes, who happened to be Don 
Manuel Requena and Don Abel Stearns, favored the 
proceeding, or at least did not attempt any serious re- 
sistance. 

Mr. Leese, as he intended to visit the capital of the 
territory, Monterey, where he might be arrested for 
a violation of the law, took a certified copy of the 
record of the trial, and of the agreement, by which the 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 81 

citizens ensued in it had bound themselves to stand 
by one another. When he reached Santa Barbara, 
he was told that a new governor had just arrived 
from Mexico, and was invited to call upon him. Mr. 
Leese went to the house of Don Carlos Carrillo, where 
he found Governor Chico, who had been appointed by 
the President of Mexico to succeed Governor 
Gutierrez, governor ad interim, after the death of 
Figueroa. Chico requested Leese to spend a day in 
Santa Barbara, and keep him company to Monterey. 
The young American, to whom a day was not of so 
much importance as the favor of a governor might be 
in a country where little attention was paid to written 
laws, waited for the new official, and thus had his 
company for several days. On the way, Chico asked 
him for an account of the affair at Los Angeles, of 
which Noriega, at Santa Barbara, had given him a 
very unfavorable opinion. Leese told the circum- 
stances, and produced the copy of the record, which 
entirely satisfied the governor, who promised that he 
should not be troubled about it. A desire to learn 
the particulars of the execution at Los Angeles was 
probably one of Chico's motives for requesting Leese's 
company; and the conviction in his mind, that the 
people acted properly, may have had some influence in 
inducing him to give a letter that assisted Leese in 
obtaining' the order for laying out the town of Yerba 
Buena. In answer to questions about his plans, Leese 
replied that he was going to San Francisco to establish 
a mercantile house, which was much needed there. 

G 



82 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Chico said that he desired to encourage commerce, and 
he would give a letter to the local authorities, request- 
ing them to grant a lot to him. At Monterey, Leese 
was detained as a party to the Los Angeles vigilance 
committee, by the order of Governor Gutierrez, but 
was discharged so soon as Chico was installed; and 
then he came on to San Francisco. 

Sec. 31. Yerba Buena. At Yerba Buena, Leese 
found nobody save Richardson. At least one Amer- 
ican trading vessel visited the harbor every year; 
four or five whalers put into Saucelito, and several 
vessels came in from Sitka to purchase wheat, maize, 
tallow and soap. The Russian trade then, or within 
a few years, amounted to about forty thousand dol- 
lars annually, and the purchases were paid for in drafts 
drawn by the Russian- American company, payable 
in St. Petersburg, which drafts were always taken at 
par by the American trading vessels. 

One of the institutions of Yerba Buena was an In- 
dian sweat-house, or temascal, which stood at the 
south-west corner of Sacramento and Montgomery 
streets till 1842. The water from a ravine that ran 
down the hillside about the line of Sacramento street 
formed near Montgomery a little fresh water lagoon, 
which Richardson's Indians considered a convenient 
place for bathing; so they built their sweat-house 
near it, and after taking a good steaming, would rush 
out and plunge into the lagoon. 

At the presidio there was no garrison, and only one 
resident, a gray-haired soldier, named Joaquin Pina. 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 83 

A mile and a half eastward from the presidio was the 
residence of widow Briones and family. At the Mis- 
sion the chief Spanish residents were Jose Sanchez 
and his sons, Francisco and Jose de la Cruz, Cande- 
lario Valencia and Francisco De Haro (these two 
were sons-in-law of Jose Sanchez), Francisco Guerrero, 
Gumecindo Flores, Jose Galindo, Tiburcio Vasquez, 
Jose Antonio Alviso, Jose Corneiio Bernal, Vicente 
Miramontes, Padre Gutierrez, and Jose de Jesus Noe. 
All these, except the priest, were married, and many 
of them had large families. A few years later De 
Haro had two pairs of twins and six other children, 
the eldest being fifteen years old; Tiburcio Vasquez 
had ten children; and C. Miramontes had seven 
children, of whom the eldest was only nine years 
old. There were some other residents of less note, 
mostly bachelors. The people at the Mission lived 
upon their herds of cattle ; their dwellings were all of 
adobe, and their furniture, food and clothing simple. 

Mr. Leese examined the shore, from the Mission to 
the presidio, and satisfied himself that the cove of 
Yerba Buena was the best place for a settlement. The 
anchorage, holding-ground and landing-place were bet- 
ter than at either the Mission or the presidio. The 
cove extended up to Montgomery street, to which 
point high tide always reached. The landing-place 
was at Clark's point, now the corner of Broadway and 
Battery streets, the beach being shallow near fc the 
middle of the cove. The district now bounded by 
California, Pacific, Montgomery and Dupont streets, 



84 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

was an open, grassy slope, and over most of its area 
had nearly the same level as at present. South and 
west of this bare tract were hills, covered with bushes 
and scrub oaks, like those which nourish at Lone 
Mountain. No wagon or cart had ever visited Yerba 
Buena cove, and the only roads from it were narrow 
horse trails, where the rider had to take constant care 
to save his person and his clothes from injury by the 
bushes and trees. 

Sec. 32. First House. Upon the arrival of Mr. 
Leese, in June, 1836, he applied to the alcalde Estu- 
dillo, who had his office at the Mission, though his 
residence was on the bank of San Leandro creek, for 
a grant of a lot at Yerba Buena. The alcalde replied 
that he had no authority to grant a lot there, but he 
would give him a lot at either the Mission or the pre- 
sidio. Leese showed his letter from Chico, but Estu- 
dillo said there was no express authority for him to 
make a grant. The new settler thereupon went back 
to Monterey, obtained from the Governor a peremp- 
tory order for a grant, and returned with a little ves- 
sel; carrying enough lumber for a small house. He 
landed at the cove about the first of July, immediately 
proceeded to the Mission, showed his order, obtained 
permission to occupy a place south of Richardson's 
tent; and with the help of the sailors and sea captains 
in the harbor, succeeded in getting up his new house 
in time to celebrate the fourth of July, with a hun- 
dred guests or more, including the principal ranche- 
ros on the northern or eastern shores of the bay, whose 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 85 

trade and favor he was anxious to secure. The Amer- 
ican flag was on this occasion hoisted for the first 
time on the site of San Francisco. The rancheros 
were glad to see a commercial house established, for 
previously they had depended for making their pur- 
chases upon foreign vessels, of which the harbor might 
be destitute for two or three months at a time. 

The house built in July, 1836, by Mr. Leese, was 
after the survey of the town, on the south side of 
Clay street, a few feet west of Dupont. The next 
year, Mr. Leese obtained from Senor Martinez, who 
was then alcalde, the right to occupy a hundred vara 
lot on the west side of Montgomery, between Clay 
and Sacramento streets, as they were afterwards laid 
out, with the understanding that the lines must be 
subject to the subsequent survey. On this lot, near 
the corner of Commercial and Montgomery streets, 
the first substantial frame building of the village was 
erected. It was known in later times as the house of 
the Pludson Bay company, to which association Mr. 
Leese sold it. Richardson built his adobe house No. 
811 Dupont street; and in the same year Senora Bri- 
oncs built an adobe house on the north-east corner of 
Powell and Filbert streets, the kitchen of which re- 
mained there about thirty years. In April, 1838, the 
first child of Yerba Buena, a daughter of Mr. Leese, 
was born.. 

The alcaldes elected under Mexican rule after 
Estudillo were Ignacio Martinez, Francisco de Haro, 
Francisco Guerrero, Jose Noe, Francisco Sanchez, 



86 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Win. Hinckley, J. N. Paclilla and Jose Sanchez 
(these two in the same year), and Jose* Noe, whose 
authority after six months of service was terminated 
by the American conquest. The alcaldes granted a 
lot fifty or one hundred varas square to every appli- 
cant ready to build a house; the first grant mentioned 
in the books being that to Richardson, dated in June, 
1836. The record shows that the land was given to 
him partly because of satisfaction with his services as 
" bricklayer, surgeon and carpenter." 

Between July 1, 1835, and. July 7, 1846, that is the 
period of the Mexican town, the number of lots 
granted by the alcaldes of San Francisco was eighty- 
four. The grantees of thirty-four lots were of Spanish 
blood, as we infer from their names; the others were 
mostly Americans and English. One lot described in 
the alcalde's book as being in San Francisco, is at 
Dolores, the remainder at Yerba Buena. Sixty- four 
of the lots were each fifty varas square, the others fifty 
by one hundred varas, or one hundred varas square, 
each vara being thirty-three inches. 

Sec. 33. First Survey. The first survey was made 
in 1839, by Jean Yioget, the lots previously granted 
having been given at random, though they were after- 
wards swung round to conform to the new lines. 
Vioget's map was a ragged, irregular delineation of 
about half the district, within the limits bounded by 
Montgomery, California, Powell and Broadway streets. 
It gave no name to any street, and the two main 
streets on it were Kearny, shown as extending from 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 87 

Sacramento to Pacific, and Dupont from Clay to 
Pacific. Clay had two full blocks on each side from 
Dupont to Montgomery; Sacramento, Washington and 
Jackson, were not so long. The survey did not tres- 
pass upon the lagoon, that covered several acres, with 
its center near the intersection of Jackson and Mont- 
gomery streets. All the streets mentioned had nearly 
the same positions as at present, but one street ran 
north-westward from the crossing of Clay and Dupont, 
and on the west side of this street, Leese and Richard- 
son each had a lot one hundred varas square, the first 
two which were occupied in the town. The other 
streets crossed each other in directions two and a half 
decrees from a riojht ano-le. Of the eleven blocks, 
most of them fractional shown on Vioget's map, only 
three now have the original size and shape; not one 
exactly the position given by him. 

In the previous year a wagon road had been opened 
from Yerba Buena to the Mission by cutting out the 
bushes and scrub oaks for a width of eisdit feet alon^f 
the line; but as the only vehicles to use it were the 
Mexican carretas with solid wheels, the main benefit 
of the road was that horsemen could pass without the 
danger of beim*- scratched or having their clothes torn 
by the chaparral. In 1840 there were four Americans, 
as many Englishmen, and six other Europeans, in 
Yerba Buena; and these owned and occupied most of 
the houses. The next year Spear and Hinckley, Ameri- 
cans, built a saw mill to run by horse-power, and 
brought redwood loes for it from Cortc Madera, in 



88 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Marin County. The boards thus produced were used 
for furniture and houses. 

Sec. 34. Hudson Bay. About 1840, the Hudson 
Bay company had a dispute with the Russian- Ameri- 
can company about the exclusive right to hunt sea- 
otter and trade with the Indians, in Queen Charlotte 
Sound; and as competition in dealing with the warlike 
savages of the northern coast might have been ruinous 
to both parties, they made an agreement that the 
Hudson Bay company should have the exclusive trade 
of the Sound, and should deliver in Sitka, at certain 
fixed prices, all the wheat, tallow, soap and maize 
needed for that place. This last stipulation was made 
by the Russians, with the intention of abandoning 
their establishment at Fort Boss, to avoid trouble 
with Mexico. Their occupation of that place had 
been recognized by Spain; but the Russian emperor 
had made no treaty with the Mexican government, 
which considered the autocrat as an enemy, and feared 
that he intended to lay permanent claim to a portion 
of the coast. After the establishment of the Missions 
and settlements north of the bay, for the avowed pur- 
pose of heading off the Russians, General Yallejo 
was sent to break up the settlement at Fort Ross, but 
he soon came to the conclusion that discretion was the 
better part of valor; and from that time the hostility 
of the Mexican government was exhibited only on 
paper. The rancheros were friendly with the people 
at Fort Ross, and went there frequently to trade. At 
last, however, the sea-otter began to become scarce.. 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 89 

the establishment at Fort Ross ceased to be profitable; 
the Russians had never intended to lay claim to the 
coast there, and they offered their establishment for 
sale. Mr. Leese proposed to give them twenty thou- 
sand dollars, five thousand dollars cash and five thou- 
sand dollars annually for three years. General Sutter 
bid thirty thousand dollars, to be paid on time, and he 
obtained the bargain. The Russians abandoned the 
country, and were replaced by the Hudson Bay com- 
pany, which, having undertaken to supply Sitka with 
such produce as could be obtained only from California, 
found it necessary to establish a j^ermanent agency, 
and selected Yerba Buena as the place. Dr. Mc- 
Laughlin, then the head of the company on the Pacific 
coast, and a resident of Oregon, sent his son-in-law, 
Mr. Ray, to take charge of the new agency; and Ray 
saw that there was an excellent opportunity to 
monopolize the trade of the bay. The great capital 
of the company gave them an advantage over indi- 
vidual competitors, and the profits of trade would 
justify the attempt. Mr. Leese, unable to compete 
with them, sold out his store and business to them, 
and moved to Sonoma. The American merchants had 
mid for their hides and tallow on delivery, in mer- 
•haudise, upon which great profits were made. Ray 
»ffered to pay half cash and half merchandise, and to 
pay the merchandise share in advance. 

These terms were so much better for the rancheros 
than those of the Americans, that the latter could get 
but little trade, and the Hudson Bay company rap- 



90 THE HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO 

idly grew in importance; but in 1844, Sir George 
Simpson, the governor of the company, visited the 
coast, condemned Ray's payment in advance, and re- 
fused to approve the purchase of the house. About 
the same time Ray made the mistake of lending the 
ammunition of the company, placed in his charge for 
purposes of trade, to Castro and Alvarado to aid them 
in a revolt against Governor Micheltorena, expecting 
to gain political influence, as well as to make a pecun- 
iary profit by the transaction. In this he was dis- 
appointed, for Sutter gathered a party of Americans 
and Indians and took sides against the rebels. Ray 
had another trouble. In consequence of his atten- 
tions to a native Californian lady, he had a quarrel 
with his wife, from whose father he had received his 
position. He sought relief from these vexations in 
intoxication, and closed one of his debauches by blow- 
ing out his brains. This was the end of the brief 
predominant influence of the Hudson Bay company 
in Yerba Buena, though, it continued to maintain an 
agency here till after the American conquest. In 
1844, the houses of Yerba Buena were the Hudson 
Bay house; the store of Spear k Hinckley; the store 
of Wm. A. LeidesdorfT; the groceries of David 
Cooper, J. J. Vioget, Peter Sherreback, and Victor 
Prudon; the restaurant of John Fuller; the grog shops 
of Gregorio Escalante (Manila man) and Jacinto Mo- 
reno (a Lascar); the blacksmith-shop of Tinker k 
Thompson; the carpenter-shops of Andrews, Davis, 
and Reynolds k Rose; and the dwelling of Seilora 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 91 

Briones. The town remained nearly stationary dur- 
ing 1844, 1845, and the early part of 1846. It was ex- 
pected, however, by the Americans and other foreign- 
ers in the country that California would soon become 
a part of the United States, and all looked to Yerba 
Buena as the probable metropolis. 

Sec. 35. Predictions. More than fifty years ago, 
ambitious Americans looked forward to the time when 
San Francisco bay and its vicinity would belong to the 
United States. The revolt of Texas was foreseen, and 
California was too valuable to be left in the possession 
of a small population, content to remain stationary in the 
pastoral condition, while surrounding nations were ad- 
vancing with all the power and speed of steam. It was 
evident that Mexico, involved in chronic civil wars, 
could not continue to hold a country so remote, so 
rich in resources, with a population that had already 
outgrown many of its Mexican sympathies, and was 
besides not numerous enough to offer much opposition 
to conquest. The Americans considered themselves 
best entitled to the prize, because their territory of 
Oregon adjoined it, their whalers and other ships in 
the Pacific were the most frequent visitors to it, and 
with their adventurous and migrating disposition they 
could soonest supply it with the people needed to de- 
velop its natural wealth. A fewyears later they were 
the largest class of foreigners in the country, and hav- 
ing married into the most influential native Califor- 
nian families, their presence supplied an additional 
1m -is for their claim, which was then recognized to be 



92 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the best; and all the travelers visiting the coast spoke 
of the probability that the stars and stripes would 
permanently wave over the future towns to be built 
about the shores of San Francisco bay. 

No experienced navigator or hydrographic engineer 
has ever written of our bay^ after examining it, with- 
out giving it liberal praise. Lieutenant Ayaia, the 
first man to pass through the Golden Gate in com- 
mand of a vessel, at least the first of whose entrance 
there is no doubt, after making a survey of it in 
1775, declared it "a collection of harbors in which 
all the navies of Spain could hide from one another." 
Vancouver visited it in 1792, and said it was "as fine 
a port as the world affords;" and thought its possession 
ought to be " a principal object of the Spanish crown." 
The Russian navigator Kotzebue visited the bay in 
in 1824, and the narrative of his voyage says: 

It lias hitherto been the fate of this region, like that of mod- 
est merit or humble virtue to remain unnoticed, but posterity 
will do it justice. Towns and cities will hereafter nourish 
where all is now desert. The water over which scarcely a soli- 
tary boat is seen to glide, will reflect the flags of all nations, 
and a happy, prosperous people, receiving with thankfulness 
what prodigal nature bestows for their use, will disperse its 
treasures over every part of the world. 

The rush of whalemen to the North Pacific about 
1820, made the Americans familiar with this coast; 
and in the course of years, many of their ships came 
to this harbor to get fresh water and provisions. The 
sailors in their conversation after reaching home, and 
in their letters while here, spoke in glowing terms of 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 93 

the grand bay, which was undoubtedly well adapted, 
by its position and circumstances, to maintain upon 
its shore the chief American seaport on the Pacific. 

Sec. 36. Morrell. The first book speaking of Cal- 
ifornia, by an American, was written by Benjamin 
Morrell, who, in command of the schooner "Tartar," 
visited our harbor in 1825, and seven years later pub- 
lished a book, in which he said : 

The bay of San Francisco, connected with the surrounding 
scenery, is the most delightful I have ever seen on the western 
coast of America. It presents a broad sheet of water, of suffi- 
cient extent to float all the British navy without crowding; the 
circling grassy shore, indented with convenient coves, and the 
whole surrounded with a verdant, blooming country, pleasingly 
diversified with cultured fields and waving forests; meadows 
clothed with the richest verdure in the gift of bounteous May; 
pastures covered with grazing herds; hill and dale, mountain 
and valley, noble rivers and gurgling brooks. Man, enlight- 
ened, civilized man, alone is wanting to complete the picture, 
and give a soul, a divinity, to the whole. Were these beauti- 
ful regions, which have been so much libeled, and are so little 
known, the property of the United States, our government 
would never permit them to remain thus neglected. The east- 
ern and middle states would pour out their thousands of emi- 
grants, until magnificent cities would rise on the shores of every 
inlet along the coast of New California, while the wilderness of 
the intehor would be made to blossom like the rose. 

Sec. 37. Beechey. Captain Beechey, in the course 
of his exploring expedition with the British govern- 
ment ship " Blossom," came into our bay in November, 
1826, and his book, published before Morrell's, calls this 
a "magnificent port," and said it "possesses almost all 
the requisites for a great naval establishment, and is 



94 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

so advantageously situated with regard to North 
America and China, and the Pacific in general, that 
it will, no doubt, at some future time be of great im- 
portance." 

This opinion, expressed by a distinguished hydro- 
graphic authority, after a careful examination of the 
entrance and anchorage, corroborating the unanimous 
declarations of the American shipmasters — Beechey 
found seven whalers anchored at Saucelito at one 
time — contributed to fix the determination of the 
American government to acquire the bay and its 
vicinity. In 1835, when the annexation of Texas was 
confidently anticipated, the cabinet made an offer for 
California to Mexico, but it was rejected; and soon 
afterwards the expedition under Captain Wilkes was 
sent out to make extensive explorations in the Pa- 
cific; but his instructions directed him to visit Cal- 
ifornia, "with special reference to the bay of San 
Francisco," and the surveys ordered to be made in 
other parts of the Pacific were presumably regarded 
by the American government as of secondary and in- 
cidental value. 

Alexander Forbes, in his " History of California," 
written in 1835, and published in 1839, says, "The 
port of San Francisco is hardly surpassed by any in 
the world;" and as to the general resources of the 
adjacent regions, he expressed the opinion that, "per- 
haps no country whatever can excel, or hardly vie 
with, California in natural advantages." 

Sec. 38. Wilkes, Etc. Wilkes visited San Fran- 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 95 

cisco in 1841; returned to New York the next year, 
and doubtless gave the chief points of his observations 
to the cabinet in conversation. The official report of 
his voyage appeared in 1845, and in it he says this is 
" one of the finest, if not the very best harbor in the 
world;" and he remarked, " the situation of California 
will cause its separation from Mexico before many 
years." Richard H. Dana's opinion, that "if Cali- 
fornia ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will 
be the center of its, prosperity," an opinion formed 
after visiting the bay as a sailor, in an American 
vessel, that was here for hides, in the winter of 1835, 
and recorded in a book which appeared in 1840, 
found twenty times as many readers as did Wilkes's 
ponderous volumes. 

The annexation of Texas was looked forward to, 
from 1837, as a certainty, and a consequent war with 
Mexico as a probability; and there was a fixed deter- 
mination in Washington, that one of the first things 
to be done, in case of war, was to seize California. We 
have no copy of the instructions issued to the Ameri- 
can war-ships, of which there was, at least, one con- 
stantly in the North Pacific; but we can infer some of 
their character from the conduct of Commodore Jones, 
who, having heard a rumor of war, arrived at Monterey 
with the frigate " United States " and the corvette 
"Cyane," on the nineteenth of October, 1842, and 
seized the place as the capital of the country for his 
government. He learned after a few hours that the 
rumor was false, so the next day he hauled down his 



96 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

flag and apologized ; but he had already exposed the 
purpose of the American cabinet, and if anything 
could have been done by Mexico to avert the final 
seizure, it would doubtless then have been done; but 
it was too late ; Mexico was too weak, and the United 
States too strong. When Mofras was at Los Angeles 
in 1842, he heard a native woman sing a Spanish song, 
which said that when the Americans should come 
California would be lost, but when the Frenchmen 
came the women would surrender. It was the com- 
mon talk among the frontiersmen in the upper Mis- 
sissippi valley, that California was to be settled by 
Americans, then made independent, and finally an- 
nexed; and it was confidence in such talk that stimu- 
lated the migrations of 1843, 1844, 1845 and 1846, 
across the continent from Missouri. 
^ Robert Greenhow, librarian of the Congressional 
Library in 1840, published a book on the north-west 
coast of America, afterward enlarged into a history 
of Oregon, and in the first edition of his work spoke 
of San Francisco bay as "one of the finest harbors in 
the world, and possessing every requisite for a great 
naval establishment," and " destined to be the center 
of an extensive commerce." In the beginning of 1842, 
Sir George Simpson, the head of the Hudson Bay 
company, visited Yerba Buena, and five years later 
published a book, in which he says the bay " is one of 
the finest harbors in the world," "a miniature Medi- 
terranean," and " an inland sea." 

On the twenty-fourth of June, 1845, George Ban- 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 97 

croft, then secretary of the navy, wrote to Commo- 
dore Sloat, commanding the American squadron in 
the North Pacific: "If you should ascertain, with cer- 
tainty, that Mexico has declared war against the 
United States, you will at once possess yourself of the 
port of San Francisco, and blockade or occupy such 
other ports as your force may permit." The great bay 
Avas considered the most important point. 

Commodore Sloat ; in his proclamation issued at 
Monterey, on the seventh of July, 1846, predicted "a 
great increase in the value of real estate;" and said 
" the country cannot but improve more rapidly than 
any other on the continent of America," under the 
permanent dominion of the United States, then offici- 
ally announced by him. 

On the sixteenth of March, 1848, Edwin Bryant, 
alcalde of San Francisco, published a notice that the 
water lots in Yerba Buena cove, including thirty-five 
blocks now occupied for business purposes between 
Broadway and Folsom streets, would be sold at auc- 
tion to the highest bidder, on the twenty-ninth of 
June, and took the opportunity to say that the "town 
is destined to become the commercial emporium of the 
wotern side of the American continent." 

The merchants of San Francisco, in March, 1848, 
paid Sam. Brannan, publisher of the "California Star," 
to print a number of his paper for circulation on the 
Atlantic slope, and Dr. Fourgeaud, who died several 
years since, furnished an article six columns long on 
" The prospects of California," in which he explained 
7 



98 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

its resources and foretold its prosperity; and of San 
Francisco he said: " Our flourishing little town is des- 
tined ere long to become the manufacturing metropo- 
lis and commercial emporium of western America." 
Within a month after that paper was published, the 
little town was crazy with the gold excitement, and 
soon it got such a fair swing that no more predictions 
were needed. 

Sec. 39. American Longing. The administration 
of Polk, installed on the fourth of March, 1845, 
looked forward to the acquisition of California as its 
chief ambition. Although the purposes of the cab- 
inet were kept secret, the idea of extending the 
American dominion on the Pacific was familiar to 
many minds. The Yankee traders on the coast, and 
the trappers and the farmers in the Sacramento basin, 
wrote letters glowing with praise of the climate and 
soil of their new home by the sunset sea — letters that 
frequently found their way into the newspapers. 
Britons and Frenchmen also longed to seize the treas- 
ure which they were convinced must soon become the 
prize of the boldest. Duflot de Mofras, in his book 
on Oregon and California, hinted that France ought 
to take California in advance of England or the 
United States. Forbes, in his history of California, 
suggested that Great Britain should take it. The 
Californians themselves were continually discussing 
the matter, the preference being generally, among 
those who favored a change, for the United. States, 
which had a contiguous territory, the prestige of 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 99 

progress, the advantage of extensive commercial rota- 
tions, and a number of citizens already established in 
the country. Most of the trade was in the hands of 
American merchants, and the most formidable mili- 
tary force in California consisted of American rifle- 
men, who had on several occasions taken an important 
part in the local political convulsions. 

The people were dissatisfied with the Mexican gov- 
ernment. It was remote and weak; it did nothing 
for the advancement of the country, and sent govern- 
ors who were unknown to the inhabitants, insolent in 
their manners, and incompetent to properly perform 
their duties. The Californians had, by long inter- 
course with foreigners, grown to be distinct in charac- 
ter and tastes from the Mexicans. On one occasion 
they had declared themselves independent of Mexico ; 
and they had expelled several Mexican governors. 
Many of the leading families, such as the Carrillos, 
Yallejos, Bandinis and Ortegas were connected by 
marriage with Americans. 

Sec. 40. Larkin. These facts were well known to 
the Washington cabinet, which had been actively 
scheming for several years to prepare the way for a 
seizure of California. The American consul at Mon- 
terey, Thomas 0. Larkin, had been instructed to get 
all possible influence with the leading native Califor- 
nians. In May, 1846, a circular had been issued 
under the stimulus of his suggestions, calling a meet- 
ing of thirty prominent men, including the chief offi- 
cials, for the purpose of considering the condition of 



100 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

affairs, with special reference to continued adherence 
to Mexico. Larkin advised the adoption of a memo- 
rial to the central administration, praying for a better 
government in California, and if that could not be 
provided, for a sale of the territory to some other 
power. It was Larkin's expectation that the discus- 
sion of this matter, and the ill feeling that would 
probably follow would prepare the people for a change; 
and he was confident that whether money or force 
should control the transfer, in either case the Amer- 
icans would carry off the prize. 

Sec. 41. Fremont's Blunder. Everything was 
going along smoothly with Larkin's plans, when they 
were disturbed by the folly and insolence of Fremont, 
who had arrived early in the year with an armed ex- 
ploring expedition, and instead of taking counsel with 
Larkin, and court ins: and conciliating the local author- 
ities, insulted and defied them. When he reached 
the vicinity of Monterey, several of the native Cal- 
ifornians claimed that some of the horses in the pos- 
session of his party had been stolen from them, and 
he refused to surrender them. Dolores Pacheco, 
alcalde at San Jose, sent a letter to Fremont, stating 
that a complaint had been made before him to recover 
a stolen horse, and to demand satisfaction for insults 
given when the owner demanded his property in the 
American camp. Fremont replied that the horse 
claimed by the native Californian had been brought 
from the United States, and that the claimant might 
consider himself fortunate in escaping without a se- 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 101 

vere whipping, instead of being merely ordered to 
leave the camp. He admitted that four horses had 
been bought of Indians in Tulare valley, and offered, 
if it could be shown that any of these had been stolen, 
to surrender them, but no further communication 
about the horse first claimed would receive his atten- 
tion, and he added: "My duties will not permit me to 
appear before the magistrate of your towns on the 
complaint of every straggling vagabond." 

Dolores Pacheco sent Fremont's letters to the pre- 
fect of the district, Manuel Castro, who wrote to Fre- 
mont, ordering him to leave the country immediately. 
He refused to go. He wanted some supplies, and he 
intended to stay till he could obtain them, whether 
the officials liked his stay or not. This last defiance 
provoked the authorities so that a military force 
marched out to attack him; but the native Californians 
were not accustomed to the use of the rifle, and after 
taking a look at the bristling little camp, they with- 
drew, leaving Fremont to move off as he did, going up 
the Sacramento valley towards Oregon. 

The more the natives heard of his conduct, the 
angrier they got, and they extended their denunciations 
to all Americans. The indignation was so strong that 
Governor Pico was satisfied that the proposed con- 
vention would do no good, so he withdrew his call for 
it, and it never met. 

The feeling, however, that had been awakened by 
the call could not be suppressed. The attempts to 
keep the movement a secret within a small circle 



102 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

failed, and the rumors which got out, alarmed one 
party while they excited the other. Larkin wrote 
thus to the American secretary of state on the fifteenth 
of June : 

He (Larkin, the writer) has felt certain that from the almost 
certain train of events now in the course of production in Cali- 
fornia, he would he called from his own private business to at- 
tend to other affairs. By withdrawing from his pursuits, he has 
been preparing himself and the department of state, by his 
numerous and voluminous correspondence in 1844 and 1845, to 
meet the ensuing events soon to be consummated. From a 
favorable disposition on his part to aid what he saw was inevita- 
ble, there has been no reluctance to expense and personal in- 
convenience, which as begun would have been continued. It 
therefore affords a sincere pleasure in being able by the new 
proposal to have more power and room to carry out that already 
begun. This will call for no remarks from natives or foreigners 
residing here, as the parties and entertaining of company, and 
several extra consular expenses, have been attributed to the 
fancy, or advancement of position in life, of the undersigned. 
The undersigned improves the opportunity of observing that 
there cannot be brought forward, by the president against 
Mexico, any claim or demand so strong and impetuous as the 
unjust and cruel arrest, imprisonment and shipment in irons of 
so many Americans from this port in April, 1840. Californians, 
in California, committed this most outrageous act, and they and 
their territory should be held responsible for the deed. 

Sec. 42. Bear Flag. The folly of Fremont was 
followed by the blunder of the Bear Flag party. The 
unmeaning 1 threats of a few ignorant native Cali- 
fornians irritated and perhaps alarmed the Americans 
north of San Francisco bay, so much that without 
taking; advice of the naval officers, of the American 
consul, or of the influential and wealthy Americans, 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 103 

living south of San Francisco, they revolted; seized 
the town of Sonoma on the fourteenth of June; im- 
prisoned General M. G. Vallejo, Captain S. Vallejo, 
Colonel Prudon, and Mr. Leese (the last an Ameri- 
can, but brother-in-law of the Vallejos) ; declared 
California independent; and hoisted a flag showing a 
bear on white ground with the words " California 
Republic." Wm. B. Ide, who succeeded Captain S. 
Merritt as commander of the bear flag party, issued 
a proclamation in which he gave the reasons of the 
movement, and declared that the Americans in the 
territory had been " threatened by proclamation from 
the chief officer of the aforesaid military despotism 
[the government of California], with extermination if 
they would not depart out of the country, leaving all 
their property, arms, and beasts of burden." This was 
a great mistake on the part of Ide and his -friends. 
The governor of California had issued no such procla- 
mation, nor was such a matter thought of. Although 
the Bear Flag party acted with far more moderation 
than rebels usually do, its conduct gave great offense 
to the native Californians, and added to the difficulty 
of the subsequent conquest of the country. 

Sec. 43. American Flag. On the seventh of 
June, 1846, Commodore Sloat,, while lying at Mazatlan 
with the frigate " Savannah," received news of the 
battles on the Iiio Grande. Without waiting for a 
formal declaration of war, he set sail the next day for 
Monterey, where he arrived on the second of July, 
lie counseled with Consul Larkin upon a proclamation, 



104 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the form of which was soon agreed upon, and on the 
seventh of July he sent Captain Mervine ashore, with 
instructions to take possession of the custom house and 
Presidio, hoist the stars and stripes, and read the 
proclamation. His instructions were obeyed without 
resistance or objection from the native authorities or 
population. Governor Pico and General Castro were 
both absent, and no soldiers showed themselves. The 
proclamation announced that "henceforth California 
will be a portion of the United States," and promised 
protection to the person and property of peaceable 
citizens. 

On the sixth, Sloat had sent a messenger to Captain 
Montgomery, of the war sloop " Portsmouth," then 
lying at Yerba Buena, giving him the news and in- 
structing him to hoist the flag. On the eighth Mont- 
gomery received the message, and hoisted the flag on 
the plaza, or public square, which has since been called 
Portsmouth Square; and, what was then the principal 
street, was named after him who first asserted the 
American authority in Yerba Buena. On the eleventh 
Montgomery wrote back that the stars and stripes 
waved at San Francisco, Sonoma, Bodega and New 
Helvetia. Los Angeles and San Diego were taken 
soon afterwards; and although there were subsequent 
troubles, the American conquest dates from the seventh 
of July, 1846. 

The war lasted nearly two years, but there was 
little fitrfitino: in California, and that little did not 
come near Yerba Buena. Such as there was in the 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 105 

southern districts was chargeable mainly to the indis- 
cretion of Fremont and the haste of the Bear Flag 
party. On the fourteenth of January, 1847, Larkin 
wrote thus to the secretary of state : 

It has been my object for some years to bring the Calif ornians 
to look on our countrymen as their best friends. I am satisfied 
very many were of that way of thinking, and more were becom- 
ing so. General Castro, from the year 1842 to 184G, made 
every demonstration in our favor, and opened plans for future 
operations, granting passports to all the Americans whom I 
presented to him. At the same time he made some foolish proc- 
lamations, supposing they would only be believed in Mexico. 
The sudden rising of the party ou the Sacramento under the 
Bear Flag, taking Californians' property to a large amount, and 
other acts, completely frustrated all hopes I had of the friend- 
ship of the natives to my countrymen, and of General Castro, 
through fear of his people, to come into the arrangements I ex- 
pected. On the arrival of the war squadron, from June to Oc- 
tober, this came to my knowledge more and more fully. During 
the time I accompanied Commodore Stockton, I led him to be- 
lieve that having taken the country the people would quietly 
submit; yet he should leave some forces amongst them. Among 
other objections of his were the expense and want of men. He 
has again hoisted our flag in this place. Colonel Fremont has 
done the same in Santa Barbara. * * * From this day it 
will require fifteen hundred troops to keep California, at least, 
or a different line of conduct to conciliate, which I think the 
Commodore will pursue. My present object is, that the State 
Department should know that the Californians were friendly, as 
1 believe they were, but proper methods were not taken to con- 
ciliate them. Had the officers left in command at different 
towns in the country had the kind and friendly, yet firm man- 
ner of Commodore Stockton, I am firm in the opinion that the 
people would not have risen. During my imprisonment many 

Calif ornian officers told me this, and said that the strict mili- 



106 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

taiy discipline pursued, and ignorance of their customs, forced 
them to take up arms. 

Sec. 44. Effect of Conquest. The conquest, made 
a great change in Yerba Buena, which had been in- 
ferior in population to the village of Dolores, three 
miles distant, but now suddenly became the chief 
town north of Monterey, with the expectation that it 
would soon surpass the capital in importance. There 
was the utmost confidence that the United States 
would continue to hold the bay, with the shores and 
country eastward and northward. Yerba Buena had 
become j^redominantly American in its population; it 
was the only American town; it was the chief seaport 
of the laro;e region in which th<d Americans were most 
numerous, and in which the large extent of unoccupied 
fertile land would certainly at no distant time attract 
many American settlers. These considerations con- 
curred, with its superior advantages as a harbor, to 
make it a preferred resort of the vessels that came to 
the coast on business connected with the war. It was 
evident that the American government could not hold 
the country until the establishment of peace without 
maintaining a considerable military force on its land and 
a considerable naval force in its waters; nor after mak- 
ing of peace without a considerable. American popula- 
tion. These forces and this population would, it was 
believed, bring most of their trade to Yerba Buena, 
which thus became a place of great expectations. 

One of the first -acts of American authority was the 
appointment by Captain Montgomery of Washington 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 107 

A. Bartlett, one of the lieutenants on the " Ports- 
mouth," to the office of alcalde of Yerba Buena, to 
supersede Noe, the Mexican alcalde residing at Dolo- 
res. The Mexican dominion and the supremacy of 
Dolores disappeared together. Under military au- 
thority exercised by a naval officer, the chief magis- 
trate of the town took a Spanish title and undertook 
to administer Mexican law as modified by American 
ideas and personal whims. There were neither stat- 
utes nor precedents to guide the court in its judg- 
ments, which were, however, probably as nearly just 
as those precise and pretentious tribunals occupying 
the same relative position in later times. 

Sec. 45. Mormons. Three weeks after the hoisting 
of the American flag, the " Portsmouth " and the 
town were agitated by the report that a strange ves- 
sel, with decks black with people, and evidently not 
an American war-ship, had sailed into the Golden 
Gate and was pursuing her course towards Yerba 
Buena cove. Captain Montgomery immediately got 
ready for fight, but as the strange ship came round 
Clark's point, he saw that his preparation was un- 
necessary. The number of women and children on 
deck proved that there was no hostile intention, and 
there was nothing to indicate a warlike character. 
But who were these people who seemed to have 
dropped from the sky? They carried the American 
flag, but no such load of people had ever been seen on 
the coast before. There was no report that an immi- 
grant vessel was coming, and the government would 



108 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

surely not send out women and children to a country 
en^aored in war. 

The general curiosity was soon gratified. The ship 
was the "Brooklyn." It had left New York under a 
pretense of being bound for Oregon, on the sixth of 
February, with two hundred and thirty-eight emi- 
grants, all, save perhaps a dozen, Mormons, who, un- 
der advice or instructions from the leaders of their 
church, had selected San Francisco bay as their des- 
tination, with the expectation that they would find on 
its shores a place where they could build up a large 
and prosperous colony, and where no government or 
mob would be strong enough for many years to dis- 
turb them on account of their religion. They were 
dismayed by the news that the American flag floated 
over California, and by the fear that the men among 
them would be called upon to enlist to support a do- 
minion to escape from which they had undertaken a 
long voyage, with the intention of settling in the wil- 
derness. However, they made no public declaration 
of their feeling, and it was too late to change their 
destination. 

They were mostly natives of New York and New 
England, and the men were all mechanics and farmers 
and well provided with the skill and the tools neces- 
sary for opening farms, building houses, and doing all 
the work of starting and maintaining a settlement in 
a wild country. Their leader was Samuel Brannan, 
who had been the publisher of the " Prophet," a 
Mormon paper in New York, and he brought his press, 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 109 

typo and compositors with him. As head of the 
company, he was the custodian of its property. The 
disturbed condition of the country, the demand of the 
officials that the men should enter the military ser- 
vice, and the expectations, afterwards justified by the 
res alt, that the chief council of the Mormon church 
would abandon the project of establishing a large 
colony in California, induced those of the men who 
did not enlist and all the women and children to settle, 
temporarily at least, in Yerba Buena, which then be- 
came predominantly a Mormon town, for a brief period. 
The men who remained in town were no idlers, and 
the place soon showed signs of their activity in new 
houses and shops. Brannan had his press at work in 
September, finding occupation for some months in 
striking off official notices, proclamations, blank deeds 
and alcalde grants. About the end of October, the 
first news sheet appeared; it was called "an extra in 
advance of the ' California Star,' " and contained a 
copy of General Taylor's official report of the battles 
in Texas on the eighth and ninth of May. On the ninth 
of January the " California Star" commenced its career 
as a weekly paper. 

The Mormons made little effort to gain converts, 
said little about the popular dogmas of their sect, did 
not then recognize polygamy ir> their creed, and 
generally maintained harmonious and even cordial re- 
lations in business and society with their neighbors. 
The men were industrious, intelligent, and public- 
spirited; the women chaste, and the children well- 



110 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

behaved. The " Brooklyn " immigrants and their de- 
scendants now make up a small, but respectable portion 
of the Californian population, and have generally 
abandoned their former creed. 

Sec. 46. Change of Name. The year 1847 was an 
eventful one for Yerba Buena. In January a decree 
was published by the alcalde (there was no town 
council), changing the name to San Francisco, "to 
prevent confusion and mistakes in public documents, 
and that the town may have the advantage of the 
name given in the public maps." There were other 
motives not mentioned by Alcalde Bartlett. A rival 
town had been laid off on the northern shore of 
Carquinez strait, a place which had many advantages 
for commerce, by Thomas 0. Larkin and Charles D. 
Semple, who in wealth, political influence, general in- 
telligence, and business capacity were among the first 
Americans on the coast. They had purchased the 
land from M. G. Yallejo, and named the town 
Francesca, after his wife. The name was well devised, 
suggestive of the bay, new, and not too long; but it 
was unfortunate in one respect, it did not prevent the 
appropriation of " San Francisco " by another place. 
Bartlett and his advisers were aware that while 
everybody knew about San Francisco bay, few had 
heard of the village of Yerba Buena, or would re- 
member it. The name had a foreign look, and would 
not be naturalized into English spelling or pronuncia- 
tion, until after much effort. It would not do to let 
the prospective town at Carquinez make the impres- 



THE VILLAGE ERA. Ill 

sion in the Atlantic states by the mere similarity of 
its name, that it was the chief town on San Francisco 
bay. The remedy was very simple, change Yerba 
Buena to San Francisco. There were no popular 
prejudices to be overcome, no voters, or councilmen to 
be consulted. The power of the alcalde was mo- 
narchical, and his decree was final. It was issued with- 
out the previous approval of the editor of the " Star," 
and he refused for several weeks to recognize the new 
name; but the people appreciated the policy of the 
change, and the refractory journalist had to submit. 
One reason why the people were pleased was, that 
Larkin and Sernple were worried. They protested, 
but protest was useless. The thing had been done, 
the right to the name was secured, and San Francisco 
was a genuine lively little town; while Francesca, 
existed only upon paper, and in the anticipations of 
its friends. The names were so much alike that who- 
ever spoke of Francesca would be supposed to refer to 
San Francisco; and its projectors took Benicia, a 
second baptismal name of Senora Vallejo, as the title 
of their place. Not long after this Captain Folsom, 
of the United States quartermaster's department, hav- 
ing considered the advantages claimed for Benicia, 
selected San Francisco as the point where the military 
stores of the United States should be kept, and thus 
contributed materially to strengthen its position. 

In February, meetings were held to send assistance 
to the Donner party, who were starving in the mount- 
ains. The sum of fifteen hundred dollars was col- 



112 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

lected, and the relief party from San Francisco arrived 
in time at the famine camp near Donner lake to ren- 
der effective service, though thirty-six out of eighty 
in the original party had died. This was the first of 
many liberal subscriptions made by San Francisco to 
relieve distant suffering. 

Sec. 47. Stevenson s Regiment. On the sixth of 
March the ship " Thomas H. Perkins" arrived with 
the first detachment of Stevenson's regiment of vol- 
unteers, who had been enlisted in the interior of the 
state of New York, under special instructions to ac- 
cept only those men who would promise to make their 
homes in California after the war, and who, by their 
good character and skill in the industrial arts, would 
be valuable settlers in a new country. When the 
" Perkins " left New York, on the twentieth of Sep- 
tember, no news had been received there of what had 
been done on this coast since the declaration of war; 
but there was no doubt that the navy had possession 
of San Francisco at least, and that place was made 
the destination of the voyage. Stevenson's men as a 
class became permanent, many of them worthy, and 
some of them prominent, citizens of California; thus 
justifying the wisdom of the cabinet in devising its 
plan of enlistment and selecting the agents who ac- 
cepted the men. 

The arrival of the "Brooklyn" and "Perkins" 
with their immigrants, the business brought to the 
town by them, and the general confidence felt in its 
future, excited a desire among the residents to se- 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 113 

cure lots for homes, business and speculation. The 
few who had studied law seriously doubted whether 
American officials could give valid titles to land with- 
out any express authority from congress ; and indeed 
legally the country had not yet become part of the 
American dominion by treaty, without which Mexican 
authority could not be formally terminated. The sale 
or gift of town lots to accommodate settlers certainly 
did not come under the military powers arising from 
the war. Nevertheless, the citizens were willing and 
anxious to take all the chances. They urgently de- 
manded some kind of a paper from the government 
officials showing that they had done all they could do 
to obtain a title, trusting that congress and the courts 
would not deprive them afterwards of the property in 
their possession and made valuable by their labor and 
enterprise. It was represented to General Kearny, 
then military governor, that the sale of lots was not 
only advisable to help in building up the town and 
attracting immigration, but also to provide funds with 
which the expenses of the town government should be 
paid. In accordance with the general solicitation, 
General Kearny, on the tenth of March, claiming to 
act by authority vested in him by the president of the 
United States, who had no such authority and never 
undertook to confer it on his subordinate, issued a de- 
cree granting to the town all the beach and water lots 
between Clark's point and Rincon point, except such 
as should be reserved for government uses by the sen- 
ior navy officer stationed at San Francisco, under con- 



114 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

dition that these lots should be sold at auction for the 
benefit of the town. 

Sec. 48. (JFarrelVs Survey. Within a week after 
the date of this decree, Edwin Bryant, who had suc- 
ceeded Bartlett as alcalde on the twenty-seventh Feb- 
ruary, issued a notice that the water lots would be 
surveyed immediately, and would be sold on the 
twenty-seventh of June. Jasper O'Farrell, an Irish 
civil engineer, was selected to make the survey, which 
so far as the water lots were concerned, consisted in 
marking them off upon paper. George Hyde, having 
succeeded to the position of alcalde, postponed the 
sale till the twentieth of July, when two hundred 
water lots, forty-five by one hundred and thirty-seven 
and a half feet in size, out of four hundred and fifty 
were sold at prices varying from fifty dollars to six 
hundred dollars each, most of them being near the 
former figure. The lots between Clay and Sacra- 
mento, reserved for the possible uses of the govern- 
ment, were sold six years and a half later, and brought 
twelve thousand dollars each on an average — more 
than one hundred times as much as in 1847. 

But the water lots could not be occupied, and this 
sale gave little satisfaction to the purchasers or im- 
mediate benefit to the town. The people needed 
solid ground for homes and shops, and so O'Farrell 
was instructed to enlarge the bounds of the town. He 
did so, and made the first careful survey, covering an 
area of about eight hundred acres. His map included 
the district bounded by the lines of Post, Leavenworth 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 115 

and Francisco streets and the water front; and south 
of Market street, it showed four full blocks fronting 
on Fourth and eleven full blocks fronting on Second 
street. There were besides a few fractional blocks. 
O'Farrell disliked many things in Yioget's little sur- 
vey, but some he could not change. Kearny and 
Dupont streets were too narrow, but these could not 
be widened without an expense of several thousand 
dollars, which nobody wanted to incur. It was con- 
sidered indispensable, however, that the acute and 
obtuse angles of Yioget's lots should be corrected by 
makinof the streets cross each other at rio4it angles, 
and to do this, a change of two and a half decrees 
was necessary in the direction of some of the streets. 
This transferred the situation of all the lots, and was 
subsequently called "O'Farrell's swing" of the city. 
All the lot-holders save one Bennett, who had a place 
between Kearny and Dupont on Pacific, accepted the 
change. He refused to be swung out of any of the 
lot originally granted to him; and his title to a strip 
covered by the swing having passed to a Mr. Barth, 
was sustained by a judgment of the twelfth district 
court in 1859. For years, on account of the swing, 
buildings were to be seen at various places projecting 
a little beyond the general line of the street, but 
nearly all, if not all, have now conformed to O'Far- 
rell's lines. The corner of Kearny and Washington 
streets was the pivot of the swing, and the main mon- 
ument or starting point was established there. The 
new map gave to the streets the names which they 



116 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

now have, and they were doubtless adopted with the 
approval of the alcalde. They provided that all the 
people of the future metropolis of the coast should be 
reminded every day of Montgomery, Stockton and 
Dupont, of the navy; of Kearny, Mason, Fremont and 
Taylor, of the army; of Sutter, Howard, Brannan, Bry- 
ant, Folsom, Harrison, Hyde, Leavenworth and Jones, 
of the early residents of the city. Yallejo and Larkin, 
prominent citizens of California, were also immortal- 
ized. 

The first delineation of Market street was made by 
O'Farrell, who correctly appreciated the importance 
of making the main streets in the southern part of the 
town agree in general direction with the route followed 
by people going from Yerba Buena cove to the Mis- 
sion. The extension of the streets running with the 
cardinal points to Mission creek would have been a 
source of much inconvenience for many years. The 
lots south of Market street were made four times as 
large as those to the northward, smaller lots there not 
being considered desirable property. 

Sec. 49. Sale of Lots. In August, of the seven 
hundred fiftv-vara lots, about four hundred had been 
sold at sixteen dollars each, including the expense of 
deed and recording; and of the one hundred and thirty 
hundred- vara lots, about seventy had been sold at 
twenty-nine dollars each, and the remainder were of- 
fered for sale at the same rate. There was an express 
condition in the conveyance of every upland lot that 
the purchaser must erect a house on the land and en- 
close it with a fence within a year, but this would 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 117 

have required the construction of nearly eighty miles 
of fencing, and of more houses than there were adults 
in the town, and neither men, money nor lumber for 
so much work could be had. The purchasers had got 
the deeds and possession, and were willing to take 
their chances that the lots would not be confiscated 
for non-fulfillment of the conditions. Not one was so 
confiscated. 

Sec. 50. Census of 1847. Under instructions from 
the governor, Lieutenant Edward Gilbert, of Steven- 
son's regiment, took a census in August, 1847; and re- 
ported a total population, exclusive of officers and 
soldiers, at San Francisco, which then did not include 
the village of Dolores, of four hundred and fifty-nine 
persons, of whom more than half were natives of the 
United States, and about forty each of Spanish Cali- 
fornians, Indians and Kanakas. In the seventeen 
months ending on the first of August, 1847, one hun- 
dred and fifty-seven houses — one fourth adobe houses, 
and the remainder shanties — had been erected in a 
town which had only thirty houses before. The cen- 
sus-taker considered it within the scope of his office 
to argue the prospects of his town as compared with 
the rival places, and his conclusion was that the latter 
would be left behind in the race. The following ex- 
tract from his remarks is worthy of repetition here, 
as indicative of the opinion prevalent in the town, and 
as predictions which have been abundantly verified : 

In conclusion I cannot suppress a desire to say, that San 
Trancisco is destined to become the great commercial emporium 



118 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of the North Pacific coast. With the advantages of so fine a 
harbor, and the enterprise of so hardy and intelligent a race of 
pioneers, it can scarcely be otherwise. Notwithstanding these 
conclusions are so obvious, I have heard it asserted that Mon- 
terey is destined to outstrip it. That Monterey can never sur- 
pass San Francisco, I think the following view will clearly 
establish; 1. San Francisco has a safer and more commodious 
harbor than Monterey; 2. The waters of the bay afford an easy 
method of communication, and a facile means of transportation 
between the town and the hundred lateral valleys which sur- 
round the bay, and which are destined soon to become granaries 
and hives of plenty; 3. It also has a ready means of communica- 
tion by water with large and rich valleys of the San Joaquin, 
the Sacramento and the American Fork, as all of these rivers are 
tributaries to the bay. So far as my information goes, Monterey, 
although it has a fine country at its back, has none of the 
facilities for reaching and transporting the products of that 
country which San Francisco possesses in regard to the country 
that surrounds it. This, it seems to me, allowing all other 
things to be equal, would give to San Francisco an insuperable 
advantage. 

Sec. 51. Leading Town. Although Monterey was 
still the political capital of the territory, and had twice 
or thrice as many people as San Francisco, the latter 
was the point where the enterprise and surplus money 
of the American population collected. Its superiority 
as a place of business was so clear that the "Californian" 
which had been established at Monterey in the previ- 
ous August as a weekly paper, was in May moved to 
San Francisco, which now had two papers, while no 
other town in the territory had one, although half 
dozen others had more inhabitants. 

Sec. 52. Shipping in 184*7. The inland commerce 
of San Francisco in 1847, was scanty. A twenty-ton 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 119 

sloop belonging to Sutter, and manned by half a dozen 
Indians, ran regularly to and from New Helvetia, 
taking about three weeks usually for a round trip, and 
having frequently little freight; but there were times 
when one vessel could not accommodate the demand, 
and then a smaller sloop, that usually plied to other 
])oints on the bay, would run up the Sacramento river. 
Another sloop was employed between San Francisco 
and the Mormon settlement on the Stanislaus. The 
ocean shipping was more important. In the year end- 
ing March 30, 1848, there were eighty-six arrivals by 
sea; including four naval vessels, sixteen whalers, and 
eight vessels from the Hawaiian Islands. The others 
were from various ports of California and Oregon. 
About a dozen of these were regularly employed in 
the coasting trade. 

The first square-rigged vessel to enter San Pablo 
bay, was the brig u Francisco " of one hundred tons, 
which on the twenty-second of August, 1847, took a 
ear^o of lumber to Benicia. The first steamer to 
paddle the water of San Francisco bay, the " Sitka," 
a steam launch brought from Sitka on the deck of a 
Russian vessel to be used in collecting hides and other 
freiffht at the various landings, was tried in October 
and found too weak to face the combined forces of 
wind and tide. She succeeded in getting to Sacra- 
mento, but an ox team, which left after she did on her 
return, arrived at Benicia in advance of her. When 
she reached her home port, her engine was taken out, 
and she was eonverted into a sloop. 



120 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 53. Puff for California. Business, after hav- 
ing been active for the year succeeding the commence- 
ment of the war, became dull towards the close of 
1847. No more troops were landed or transhipped, 
the war vessels were sent away to doubtful points, no 
more immigrants arrived by sea, the expected im- 
migration by land did not exceed a dozen persons, and 
those who came said that few would follow till the 
close of the war. 

The residents having bought their lots, and incurred 
debts in the expectation of a steady and rapid growth 
of the town, were now oppressed by fears of several 
years of dullness. After much consultation they 
agreed that they must make an effort to attract im- 
migrants, war or no war, by circulating information 
about California in Missouri, and adjacent states, and 
by providing facilities for sending letters across the 
continent at intervals of not more than a month during 
the spring, summer and fall. 

In accordance with this plan, an extra number of 
the " California Star" was published in the latter part 
of March, 1848, with special reference to circulation 
in " the States," and it had an article six columns 
long by Dr. V. J. Fourgeaud, on " The Prospects of 
California," setting forth her attractions and resources 
in highly laudatory and in some respects exaggerated 
terms, but with much correct information, and many 
judicious remarks. This first publication, designed 
mainly to be sent overland, was received with general 
favor, and liberal orders were given by the people of 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 121 

town and country for copies. On the first of April, 
the day on which the paper was dated, a courier was 
dispatched with two thousand copies, and some letters 
— the latter paid fifty cents each — across the conti- 
nent, with the promise that he should reach Indepen- 
dence, then the border of civilization in the Mississippi 
basin, within sixty days. It was arranged that an- 
other joaper, with other information for immigrants 
should be printed on the first of June, and should be 
sent to Missouri in the same way, but it never ap- 
peared. Before the time for its publication arrived, 
gold mining, which had been mentioned incidentally 
in the extra edition of April 1, as a rumor that com- 
manded no credit and had no importance, had taken 
such dimensions that nobody thought about any effort 
to attract emigrants. The diggings had provided an 
advertisement that overshadowed everything else. 

Sec. 54. Peace. The war had ended practically 
on the fourteenth September, 1847, when the Amer- 
ican army under General Scott occupied the Mexican 
capital. From that time both parties were anxious 
to make peace; but the Mexican chieftains for a long 

time could not come to an agreement anionic them- 
es © 

selves. At last, on the second of February, 1848, a 
treaty was made, and though there were some defects 
in the authority of the negotiations on each side, yet 
the terms agreed upon were considered satisfactory, 
and both nations ratified them rather than expose them- 
selves to the danger of delay. The rati ii cations were 
exchanged on the thirtieth of May at Queretaro, where 



122 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the document had been signed. The news of the 
treaty reached San Francisco on the eighth of Au- 
gust, and on the eleventh the people celebrated the 
establishment of peace and the recognition of the 
American title to California. This recognition was of 
much influence in pacifying the native Californians. 
There was no fear that Mexico could in any event 
retake the country about San Francisco bay, but there 
might have been serious trouble on the southern coast, 
where murders, on account of antipathies of race were 
not rare as late as 1858. Besides the other reasons 
for rejoicing, there was the fulfillment of the promise, 
made by Commodore Sloat in his proclamation issued 
when he hoisted the American flag, that it would 
bring prosperity to the country. Only twenty-five 
months had elapsed, and already wonders had been 
accomplished. 

In the eleven years following secularization, the white 
population had increased from five thousand to thir- 
teen thousand, according to estimates, for no general 
census had been taken in the meantime, but the Indi- 
ans had decreased or disappeared rapidly. The towns 
of San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Fran- 
cisco and Sonoma had risen on the sites of the old 
Missions. A wagon road had been opened from Mis- 
souri, and rude trails from New Mexico and Oregon, 
and settlers had come in by sea as well as land. 
Americans, looking upon California as theirs by man- 
ifest destiny, were the most numerous and influential. 
They married into leading families of Los Angeles, 



THE VILLAGE ERA. 123 

Santa Barbara, Monterey and Sonoma, obtained con- 
trol of the valleys north of Carquinez strait, intro- 
duced saw-mills, grist-mills, light wagons, improved 
agricultural and mechanical tools, habits of reading 
and industry, an appreciation of the value of the 
country and a confidence that it would not be neg- 
lected much longer. The American authority had 
been established two years before the gold excitement 
attracted general attention, and in that brief period, 
though it was a time of hostility and confusion, Cali- 
fornia had made considerable progress, indicating that 
she would have prospered, even without the help of 
any mines. 



124 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE GOLDEN ERA. 

Section 55. Gold. James W. Marshal, an Amer- 
ican employed by Sutter in building a saw-mill to be 
driven by water, at Coloma, forty-five miles north- 
eastward from Sacramento, on the nineteenth of Jan- 
uary, 1848, found gold in the race or ditch, and hav- 
ing heard of the gold mines in the Los Angeles 
region, and being a man of excitable character and 
active imagination, supposed he had made a great dis- 
covery. He immediately began to talk of it to the 
people round him, but they, like, himself, did not 
know how to test gold or to separate it from clay and 
gravel, and they ridiculed him for attaching so much 
importance to his brass, as they called it. Neverthe- 
less, whenever the water was stopped so that the ditch 
was empty, they looked for pieces of metal which had 
been exposed by the current, so that in a month, with- 
out neglecting their work at the mill, they had got 
several ounces together, most of it in very small 
pieces, the largest as heavy as a ten-dollar coin. As 
boiling in lye and touching with vinegar did not make 
the stuff turn green, the workmen began to think 
Marshal might be right; and in the latter part of Feb- 
ruary one of their number, a Mr. Bennett, partly for 
the purpose of ascertaining the value of Marshal's 
gold, went to San Francisco. Soon after landing he 
was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, who had been a 






THE GO L DEN ERA. 125 

gold miner in Georgia. On examining the specimens, 
of which Bennett had half tan ounce, he immediately 
declared that it was gold, that the pieces were larger 
than those found in Georgia, and that the mines must 
be rich. 

He tried to induce some of his friends to go with 
him, but they had no money to spend in such " foolish- 
ness," as they called it, and he and Bennett had to go 
alone. On the seventh of March he arrived at the 
mill ; and the next day, with a pan, prospected enough 
to satisfy himself that the diggings would pay well. 
He then made a rocker, went into the business of 
washing gold, and was successful from the first. The 
other men observed how he worked and imitated his 
example. On the twenty-fifth of March the " Star " 
stated that gold dust had become an article of traffic 
at New Helvetia, and a few days later a party includ- 
ing E. C. Kemble, editor of that journal, left San 
Francisco to visit the diggings. At New Helvetia 
they were joined by Captain Sutter, who was vexed 
because his men, hired to run his mill, were neglect- 
ing their work of getting out lumber; the mill labor- 
ers, perhaps ashamed of the violation of their contract, 
pretended while the visitors were there to be engaged 
in lumbering, and Humphrey was probably away in 
some distant ravine. Whatever was the cause, Kem- 
ble could tind neither gold nor mines, and immediately 
after his return he declared the mines " a sham." He 
had scarcely printed his opinion before half a pound of 
the dust was offered to the merchants in town, and 



126 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

after inquiring of a jeweler and a man who had seen gold 
dust at Los Angeles, they took it at eight dollars an 
ounce, charging a high price for their provisions. 
Everybody went to look at the stuff in the store, and 
before the end of April, so many had gone to Coloma, 
that the population was perceptibly reduced. Every 
schooner from New Helvetia brought more dust, some 
of which sold for four dollars per ounce in coin. More 
orders for provisions, and more favorable news caused 
more people to go to the mines. On the twenty-ninth 
of May, the " Californian " announced its own suspen- 
sion, because of the general abandonment of the town, 
and added that the whole country was resounding with 
" the sordid cry of gold, gold, gold!" Two weeks later 
the " Star " also suspended, compositors, editors and 
devils, all going to the diggings. The San Francis- 
cans were already greedy for news; and if there had 
not been a complete stoppage of ordinary business, the 
newspapers would have continued to appear. Three 
fourths of the men had left, and town lots were offered 
at one half, or one third of the price at which they had 
been held a month before, the owners beinsf willing to 
sacrifice all their property to reach the mines with a 
good supply of tools and provisions. 

Sec. 56. Trade Stimulated. But this condition of 
affairs did not last long; many of those who went to 
the placers saw that there was gold enough to attract 
a large migration, which must pay a great tribute to 
San Francisco. Those miners at the diggings, though 
comparatively few, already demanded many articles 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 127 

which must be obtained from Oregon, the Atlantic 
states and Hawaiian Islands. Gold was abundant, and 
there was no disposition to spare it. If certain com- 
forts and luxuries of life could not be bought for the 
ordinary price, they must still be procured, for the 
miners would pay ten prices rather than do without 
them. It was under considerations of this kind that 
some of those who had left the little town at the bay, 
soon returned and prepared themselves to profit by 
its business and growth. 

In June and July about two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars of gold dust were received at San Francisco; 
in the next two months, six hundred thousand dollars; 
and the sums continued to increase. The exports of 
1847 had been worth one hundred and sixty thousand 
dollars; and after September, 1848, the monthly re- 
ceipts from the mines were at least twice as much. 
It was estimated that six thousand persons, includ- 
ing tame Indians in the service of white masters, 
were at work in the mines before the close of the 
year. In September, a Honolulu paper announced 
the arrival of a vessel therefrom San Francisco, with 
"a cargo of gold dust and lumber." The gold export 
of 1848, as shown by the custom-house statistics, 
amounted to two million dollars, and the duties on 
imports to one hundred and ninety-five thousand dol- 
lars. 

In May, the people in the mines were nearly all 
from the valleys that send their waters to the ocean 
through the Golden Gate; in June, many adventurers 



128 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

from Monterey and Santa Cruz had arrived; in July, 
from Los Angeles; and in September and October, 
from the Hawaiian Islands and Oregon. The farms 
and gardens having been neglected, California could 
not supply the demand of the miners for provisions; 
and vessels, mostly schooners, were sent off to buy 
flour, salted meat, dried fruit, sugar, coffee, rice, fresh 
vegetables, distilled liquors, bedding, tent cloth and 
ready-made clothes, at any price. The miners had not 
only ceased to produce anything save gold, but their 
capacity for consumption had suddenly trebled. Men 
who had before lived upon five dollars a month now 
spent three hundred. Many who had been idlers, 
when they could make little by labor, were now 
among the most industrious; others, who had be- 
fore never wasted a day, became loungers, because 
they could live with comparative comfort by gam- 
bling, or with an occasional day of work. The gen- 
eral results were a vast increase of wealth, an unex- 
ampled industrial production, a constant excitement 
that has contributed to form the intellectual character 
of the Californians, and a vast commercial activity 
which enriched San Francisco, the port through which 
most of the supplies for the mines came, and through 
which nearly all the immigrants by sea arrived. Much 
of the coin at San Francisco had been carried off to 
the mines, and gold dust had become current in its 
place at twelve dollars an ounce, though in New York 
it was worth about eighteen dollars. On the thirty- 
first of July Governor Mason issued an order that the 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 129 

duties at the custom-house might be paid in dust, and 
on the ninth of September a public meeting of busi- 
ness men agreed that gold dust should be accepted at 
sixteen dollars per ounce. 

Sec. 57. The Excitement in the East. From the 
Hawaiian Islands the news of the gold discovery was 
carried to ail the ports of the Pacific; and in October 
the adventurers from Oregon, Mexico, Chile, Peru, 
and the various Pacific -islands began to come in 
throngs. Lieutenant E. P. Beale, of the navy, who left 
Monterey on the first of July with official despatches, 
crossed Mexico, and must have reached Washington 
in August; but the earliest serious mention of the 
gold discovery in the press of the Atlantic slope seems 
to have been that made in the Baltimore " Sun" of 
September 20. From that time forward nearly every 
week brought its additions to the reports from the 
diggings, though for months they were regarded with 
general incredulity and ridicule. They came through 
many different channels, all agreeing in the main fact 
that there was an immense demand for provisions, tools, 
and various other articles of merchandise, as well as 
for labor. Letters were received in every State from 
men in the mines advising their relatives and friends 
to sell out at much sacrifice and start without delay. 
At Portland, Mazatlan, San Bias, Guaymas, Panama, 
Callao, Valparaiso, and Honolulu, there was an ex- 
citement the like of which had never been seen, and 
soon there was a similar excitement throughout the 
United States. The main topic of conversation was 

9 



130 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

California. It filled the papers; it was the subject of 
the most popular songs; it suggested the plot and 
dialogue of some of the most successful theatrical 
pieces; it destroyed the popular interest in the re- 
ligious revivals which were then worked up every 
winter in several Atlantic cities; it added immensely 
to the business and profits of fortune-tellers; it was a 
common text for sermons deprecating the evil influ- 
ence of a thirst for gold by clergymen who saw many 
of their congregation preparing to depart; it was the 
absorbing topic of conversation in every family; and 
it was a remarkable experience for those who stayed 
as home as well for those who went. The country 
was in a condition of high prosperity, that prepared 
a considerable proportion of the people to take a part 
in the excitement* Money was abundant; the Mex- 
ican war, besides being a grand military success, had 
attracted a lars^e number of immigrants; and had 
stimulated business and enterprise. Thousands of 
young men, after sharing the triumphant campaigns 
of Scott and Taylor, had not settled down yet to dull 
labor, and were looking round for some new field of 
inspiriting activity. To them the news from Cali- 
fornia was a special delight; and as every week brought 
additional confirmation of the wonderful reports, their 
enthusiasm rose and extended to the whole popula- 
tion, so that from Maine to Texas there was one uni- 
versal frenzy. It occupied the thoughts of all; it 
disturbed business; it prevented marriages; it broke 
up families; it was the hope of those who could go,, 
and the despair of those who could not. 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 131 

The noise of preparation filled the country. Most 
of those taken with the gold fever in the Mississippi 
basin prepared to start on the journey by land so soon 
as the spring should open; those along the Atlantic 
coast went by Cape Horn. The most active and en- 
ergetic young men of every state were among the 
adventurers. The New York " Tribune/' near the 
close of January, said: 

A resident of New York, coming back after a three month's 
absence, would wonder at the word ' California/ seen every- 
where in glaring letters, and at the columns of vessels adver- 
tised in the papers about to sail for San Francisco. He would 
be puzzled at seeing a new class of men in the streets, in a pe- 
culiar costume — broad felt hats of a reddish brown hue, loose, 
rough coats reaching to the knee, and high boots. Californians 
throng the streets; several of the hotels are almost filled with 
them; and though large numbers leave every day, there is no 
apparent diminution of their numbers. Even those who have 
watched the gradual progress of the excitement are astonished 
at its extent and intensity. The ordinary course of business 
seems for the time to be changed; bakers keep their ovens hot 
day and night, turning out immense quantities of ship bread, 
without supplying the demand; the provision stores of all kinds 
are besieged by orders; manufacturers of rubber goods, rifles, 
pistols, bowie knives, etc., can scarcely supply the demand. 

In his "Seeking the Golden Fleece," Dr. Stillman 

says: 

At the close of the month of January, ninety vessels had sailed 
from the various ports, carrying nearly eight thousand men, and 
seventy more ships were up for passage. Never since the cru- 
sades was such a movement known; not a family but had one or 
more representatives gone or preparing to go. Every man was 
a walking arsenal, prepared for every emergency but that of not 
coming back loaded with gold. Companies fur mining and trad- 



132 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ing were formed in every considerable town, and those who 
could not go subscribed to the stock and sent a representative. 
Editors, who in the columns of their papers had discouraged the 
movement and exhorted the young men to be satisfied with the 
slow gains of home industry and stand by their households, sold 
out, and by virtue of their character as representatives of the 
press, obtained extraordinary facilities for transportation, and 
anticipated the quickest of us at the gold mines by at least a 
month. Ministers of the gospel raised their voices against the 
dangers of riches, and, like Cassandra, prophesied unutterable 
woes upon the country, and started in the first ship as mission- 
aries to San Francisco. Physicians, impatient at the slow ac- 
tion of alterants, sold their horses, and leaving their uncollected 
accounts with their families, procured a good supply of musket 
balls and Dupont's best rifle powder, and shoved off for the 
land of gold, to the tune of " Oh, Susanna." 

The song here referred to " The California Emi- 
grant," gave the California fever to thousands, who 
without its stimulus would have remained in their 
native towns. Written by Jonathan Nichols, who left 
Salem, Massachusetts, in the ship ei Eliza," on the 
twenty-first of December, 1848, for the land of gold, 
it was sung everywhere and by everybody, and at 
concerts, and in the theatres, even when poorly 
rendered, was received with more fervor by the multi- 
tude than was shown to the well executed airs from 
the most brilliant operas. This song bears to Cali- 
fornia a relation similar to that borne to the United 
States by the music of Yankee Doodle. 

Sec. 58. 1849. The year of 1849 was marked by 
the arrival of, at least, three times as many immi- 
grants as the entire previous population of the terri- 
tory, and on account of the very large proportion of 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 133 

young, intelligent, active men, skilled in the industrial 
arts, the productive power was increased, at least, five 
fold; by the increase of San Francisco from a popula- 
tion of about two thousand to six or eight times as 
many ; by the establishment of a line of mail steamers 
to New York, running each way every month, and 
by a line of river steamers between San Francisco and 
Sacramento, running each way every day; by the 
popular movement or mob to punish the ruffians 
known as "the hounds;" by the adoption of a state 
constitution; by the rapid spread of gold washing 
between Mariposa and Trinity river over extensive 
districts where no placers had been discovered or 
worked in the previous year; by the collection in San 
Francisco harbor of four hundred ships which had been 
deserted by their sailors; by the sale of a large num- 
ber of city lots ; by the construction of a good wharf; 
and by a serious conflagration. 

Sec. 59. First Great Fire. The first of the great 
fires of San Francisco came on the twenty-fourth of 
December, and burned down all of the buildings on 
Kearny street, between Washington and Clay, and at 
that time those were the most valuable in the city, 
including the Parker House, a two-story frame, which 
served as a hotel and gambling-house. The entire loss 
was one million dollars. 

The high expense of landing merchandise in light- 
ers, when laborers charged from eii^ht to sixteen dol- 
lars a day, at a place where the greater part of the 
water-front was a wide mud flat, except at high tide, 



134 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and where the rocks of Clark's Point could not accom- 
modate one tenth of the business, induced Alcalde 
Leavenworth in May to give the block bounded by 
Clay, Sacramento, Battery and Front streets, to en- 
courage the building of a wharf projected on the line 
of Commercial street. Six months later the structure 
on the line of that street, known for years as Long 
Wharf, extended out eight hundred feet, reaching 
nearly to the line of Front street, and the water at 
its end was so deep that the largest ships could lie 
there at low tide. It became the landing-place for 
most of the steamers, and for much merchandise. 
Business houses crowded both sides of the street above 
the wharf, and for several years it was one of the 
chief centers of retail traffic. 

Sec. 60. Telegraph Hill. The urgent demand for 
the earliest possible information about the entrance of 
vessels into the harbor, a result of the rapid increase 
of commerce, and the large profits of the merchants, 
led in September to the erection of a house on Tele- 
graph Hill, for the purpose of making signals visible 
throughout the city. A couple of arms, which could 
be raised or lowered at pleasure on a high pole, indi- 
cated by their position whether any water-craft was 
coming in at the Golden Gate, and, if so, what its 
character; if a steamer, whether a side-wheeler or 
screw steamer; if a sailing vessel, whether ship, brig 
or schooner. All the business men and many of the 
women and children were familiar with the signs, and 
those not in sight of the station made inquiries at 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 135 

brief intervals what vessels had arrived. When the 
telegraph signalled a side-wheeler about the time 
when the Panama steamer was due, the city fluttered 
with excitement, and thousands of men rushed to see 
friends, to hear the news, and to look after letters. 
The moment after the steamer reached the dock, the 
streets were full of boys crying the New York papers, 
the sale of which was a source of lar^e revenue to the 
newsmen. At a theater one evening, a stupid actor 
rushed upon the stage with his arms stretched out 
awkwardly, asking, " What means this, my lord;" 
the actor who was to respond hesitated, in ignorance 
of his part, but a newsboy in the third tier shouted 
out: " Side-wheel steamer." The answer was so ap- 
propriate, that the house instantaneously recognized 
and applauded it loud and long. 

Sec. 61. Edward Everett. Among the notable 
pioneer vessels for California was the " Edward 
Everett," which sailed from Boston on the thirteenth 
of January, 1849, and arrived at San Francisco on the 
seventh of July with one hundred and fifty-two pas- 
sengers, or rather owners, for they bought the ship, 
each paying for a share and contributing to the fund 
with which her supplies were furnished. The dis- 
tinguished gentleman, after whom she was named, was 
then president of Harvard college, and having heard 
that many of the company were young men of good 
education and character, he sent a box with three 
hundred volumes of standard books for their entertain- 
ment and instruction during the long voyage before 



136 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

them. The passengers made good use of his liberal 
gift, and many of them proved, by their subsequent 
lives, that they were worthy of his bounty. The plan 
of forming clubs to purchase ships to carry the mem- 
bers to California was adopted in numerous instances. 

Sec. 62. First Steamer. In the forenoon of the 
twenty-eighth of February, 1849, the news ran through 
the town that a merchant steamer had entered the 
Golden Gate, and as the first boat of the Pacific Mail 
company, from which great benefits were expected, 
was overdue, the people ran out in joyful excitement, 
some going to the top of Telegraph Hill, and others 
to Clark's Point, the landing place. The sun was 
bright, the sky clear, the atmosphere quiet, the tem- 
perature warm, the bay still, and the hills green, the 
beauty of the day contributing to the general happi- 
ness. At last San Francisco was bound to the Atlan- 
tic coast by steam. As the vessel, black with its 
wondering passengers, came round Clark's Point, a 
couple of American war-ships at anchor in the cove 
welcomed the new-comers with a display of flags, the 
playing of national airs by the bands, salutes from the 
guns, the manning of the yards, and cheer after cheer 
from the crews — cheers that were repeated upon the 
shore and answered from the steamer until the echoes 
came back from the hills. The occasion was one never 
to be forgotten by those present. 

So soon as the stea/mer could come to anchor, for 
she could not reach the wharf, the boats went off and 
there was an anxious interchange of inquiries. The 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 137 

passengers, greedy to know whether the stories of the 
gold discoveries Averc true, were told that the mines 
were rich beyond example, yielding several millions 
every month, a report that could well be believed; for 
instead of seeing, as they expected, a harbor nearly 
empty and a dull village, they saw a bay crowded 
with ships, and a town that looked like the camp of an 
army. In return for the news from the mines, the 
town people were told that two othe steamers belong- 
ing to the Pacific Mail company had started to come 
round Cape Horn, and that the monthly service with 
New York by way of Panama had now commenced 
regularly. This provided facilities for travel and the 
transmission of neAvs, with the help of which the 
mines would soon fill up with people. The San Fran- 
ciscans feared nothing else so much as the difficulties 
of access to the Atlantic slope, and the lack of mail 
transportation. The arrival of this steamer was a 
great epoch in the early history of the city, and the 
general appreciation of its importance was shown by 
the gatherings of the people to congratulate one an- 
other and talk over the news, by the firing of pistols, 
and by an illumination in the evening. 

Congress had passed an act on the third of March, 
1847 — before Mexico had ceded her claim to Califor- 
nia, and even before General Scott had taken Vera 
Cruz — providing that a semi-monthly mail should be 
carried from New York to Panama, and authorizing ;l 
contract for a monthly mail each way between Pan- 
ama and Oregon. It was not until after the Avar had 



138 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

been closed that the contract thus offered could find 
a responsible bidder, but the Pacific Mail steamship 
company, having been organized on the twelfth of 
April, 1848, finally took it, with the promise of two 
hundred thousand dollars annual subsidy, and the ob- 
ligation of maintaining three steamers on the route 
between Panama and Astoria, by way of San Fran- 
cisco. The three steamers, the "California," " Ore- 
gon " and "Panama/" each measuring about one thou- 
sand tons, were all built without delay and started 
promptly, though the last had an accident soon after 
getting to sea, so that she was compelled to return 
and refit. All rendered long and good service on the 
Pacific coast. The " California " brought no passen- 
gers round the Horn, but when she touched at Panama 
she found there the passengers of the steamer " Fal- 
con," which had left New York on the first of Decem- 
ber. Most of them had engaged passage before much 
was said about the gold discoveries, and they attached 
little importance to the story until they arrived at 
Panama, where they found some of the dust and saw 
the excitement that had reached all the western coast 
of the continent. Among the passengers were Gen- 
eral Persifer Smith, who was to have chief command 
of the American forces on the Pacific coast; Major 
Canby, Eugene Sullivan, Alexander Austin, E. T. 
Batturs, Alfred Robinson, Malachi Fallon, Pacificus 
Ord, R. M. Price, Wrn. Van Voorhees, H. F. Will- 
iams, Dr. A. B. Stout, Rev. 0. C. Wheeler, Rev. S. 
H. Willey, and others since prominent in the history 
or business of the state. 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 139 

The "California" was immediately deserted by her 
crew, so she had to lie in the harbor for several weeks 
before entering upon her regular mail service. The 
" Oregon " arrived on the thirty-first of March, with 
John W. Geary, first postmaster at San Francisco. 
He brought the first mail sent by the post-office de- 
partment to the Pacific coast, and he had authority to 
establish the post-offices and to make contracts for 
carrying the mails. 

Sec. 63. Immigration by Sea. The average dura- 
tion of the voyages made under sail from the Ameri- 
can Atlantic ports was about five months, many of the 
ships sent out being old tubs which had been built 
with more regard for solidity than speed, and not a 
few of them so old that they would never have made 
another voyage but for the extraordinary demand of 
the gold excitement. In April two vessels arrived 
from the Atlantic, having started in November ; in 
May only one came ; in June, eleven ; in July, forty ; 
in August, forty-three ; in September, sixty-six ; in 
October, twenty-eight ; in November, twenty-three ; 
and in December, nineteen, a total of two hundred and 
thirty-three in nine months. In addition to these, 
three hundred and sixteen vessels arrived in that peri- 
od from other ports, making a total of five hundred 
and forty-nine arrivals, and an average of two vessels 
a day. The passengers of the year arriving by sea 
numbered thirty-five thousand, including twenty-three 
thousand Americans. Besides these passengers, three 
thousand sailors deserted their ships, and in the be- 



140 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ginning of August two hundred square-rigged vessels 
were lying in the bay unable to get sailors. The 
number of immigrants who arrived overland in the 
course of the year was estimated to be forty-two thou- 
sand, including thirty-three thousand Americans. The 
large proportion of Americans secured their predom- 
inance in the mines where previously the aliens, mostly 
Spanish- Americans, had a majority. At the close of 
the year it was estimated that the population of Cali- 
fornia numbered one hundred thousand souls. 

Sec. 64. Call for Convention. As population and 
business increased, the want of a better government 
was felt in many ways. It was already clear in the 
fall of 1848, that California would soon have enough 
inhabitants for a state, but it was understood that there 
would be difficulty in securing its admission. The 
members of congress from the south were dissatisfied 
upon finding that California would demand admission 
as a free state, thus destroying what they called "the 
balance of power," — the thirty states then composing 
the union being equally divided between free and slave. 
It was with the anticipation that the next year would 
surely bring a large immigration, and that congress 
might be unable to provide for a government, that on 
the twenty-ninth of December a public meeting in San 
Francisco requested the election in January of dele- 
gates to a constitutional convention which should meet 
in March ; but many of the districts held no election, 
and the time for holding the convention was post- 
poned. When in the spring of 1849, there was no 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 141 

longer any doubt throughout the union that California 
must soon be a state, and that the ill feeling between 
slavery extensionists and their opponents would prob- 
ably be embittered by delay, the cabinet sent word to 
General Riley, military governor, that California 
should not wait for preliminary action by congress, 
but should adopt a constitution and thus save the ad- 
ministration from much bother. In accordance with 
the suggestion of his superiors, sent to him unofficially, 
Governor Riley, on the third of June, issued a proc- 
lamation calling a constitutional convention, to consist 
of thirty-seven members, five of them from San Fran- 
cisco, to meet at Monterey on the first of September. 
This document made no mention of the previous pop- 
ular movement for a convention, and did not recognize 
those gentlemen who had been chosen delegates. 
There were some angry protests, but they amounted to 
nothing. 

Sec. 65. Ayuntamiento. The governor had also 
given much offense by his action in reference to the 
city affairs. The people were dissatisfied with the 
administration of Alcalde Leavenworth, who did not 
efficiently preserve order or administer criminal jus- 
tice. They felt the want of a deliberative body, and af- 
ter a preliminary meeting, on the twenty-seventh De- 
cember, they held an election for a town council, but 
the old council or ayuntamiento appointed by the alcalde 
declaring the election void, on the ground that the 
votes of aliens had been received, refused to surrender 
the books; and ordered an election for the fifteenth of 



142 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

January. The number of voters at this second elec- 
tion having been so small that the council thus chosen 
did not command general confidence, a public meeting 
passed resolutions requesting both councils to resign, 
and ordering an election on the twenty-first February 
of a legislative assembly which should take chief man- 
agement of the government of the city. This election 
was held and the two councils disbanded; but Leaven- 
worth, the alcalde, would not surrender his office, which 
controlled the sale of town-lots, then the chief source of 
revenue, thus depriving the Assembly of much of the 
importance which they expected to enjoy. They took 
measures with little delay to eject him by legal pro- 
cess from his position, but before they could accom- 
plish that purpose, Governor Riley issued another 
proclamation declaring the legislative assembly an 
illegal body, forbidding the payment of any money to 
them or their subordinates on municipal account, 
recognizing Leavenworth as still in authority, and or- 
dering an election to be held on the first August — 
the dav for choosing delegates to the constitutional 
convention — for a prefect, first alcalde, second alcalde, 
and an ayuntamiento. The legislative assembly de- 
nounced the governor, and desired the people to ex- 
press their wishes through the ballot-box on the ninth 
July. Only one hundred and sixty-nine votes were 
then given in favor of the legislative assembly, and 
though but seven were cast on the other side, the 
decision was regarded as favorable to the Governor's 
course, and further opposition was abandoned. 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 143 

Sec. G6. City Government. On the first of 
August, fifteen hundred and sixteen votes were 
polled; Edward Gilbert, Myron Norton, W. M. 
Gwin, J. Hobson, W. M. Stewart, F. J. Lippitt, 
A. J. Ellis, R M. Price, W. D. M. Howard 
and Francisco Sanchez, were elected delegates to 
the constitutional convention, the last five as alter- 
nates, and the last two did not serve. J. "W. Geary 
was unanimously elected first alcalde, an official 
similar in authority to that of mayor. At the first 
meeting of the new ayuntamiento, Mr. Geary sub- 
mitted a message reviewing the general condition of 
municipal affairs, informing them that there was no 
office room for the transaction of government busi- 
ness, no police, no provision for the care of the indi- 
gent sick, and no fund for the burial of the pauper 
dead. He advised them that, in the absence of any 
state legislative authority, they were supreme in the 
district; and if they confined themselves within the 
legitimate sphere of their duty, their acts would be 
approved by the governor and confirmed by the leg- 
islature when it should be organized. He recom- 
mended the licensing of gambling — a piece of advice 
which was soon adopted and adhered to for nearly 
five years. The new administration went to work 
vigorously, especially in the matter of levying license 
taxes on business, and soon supplied all those things, 
about the lack of which Mr. Geary had complained. 
The first public building purchased for the purposes 
of the city government was the hulk of the brig 



144 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

" Euphemia," anchored in the bay at the crossing of 
Jackson and Battery streets, for use as a prison. 

Sec. 67. Constitution. The constitutional con- 
vention, composed of forty-seven members, of whom 
eio*ht were from San Francisco, three of the alter- 
nates having been admitted as full members, met at 
Monterey on the first of September, and after com- 
pleting its work, adjourned on the thirteenth of 
October. Nearly all the sections were quoted, word 
for word, from the constitutions of other states. 
There were few questions that excited much inter- 
est. The convention was almost unanimous in accept- 
ing the ideas that slavery should be forbidden; that 
the people had the right to settle the slavery ques- 
tion; that the people had the right to form a consti- 
tution without the intermediation of congress, or of a 
territorial government; and that the coast, from Ore- 
gon to Mexico, should be one state. These proposi- 
tions were all the subjects of much debate afterwards 
in congress; but in the convention little was said 
against them. The question which excited more feel- 
ing than any other was the mode of raising the reve- 
nue. The people along the southern coast were afraid 
that all the taxes would be put on the land and cattle, 
and none on property in the mining districts; and 
they succeeded in carrying the clause that "all prop- 
erty shall be taxed according to its value," intending 
to deprive the legislature of the power of exempting 
any large class of property to the injury of any portion 
of the state. There was also much dispute about 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 145 

the eastern boundary, many of the members desiring 
to include Salt Lake. 

The new constitution was submitted to the people 
on the thirteenth of November, and accepted by a 
large majority, with only five negative against two 
thousand and fifty-one affirmative votes in San Fran- 
cisco. These negatives were doubtless cast by advo- 
cates of slavery, against which the general sentiment 
was emphatic, and had been expressed at several 
public meetings held in the city in the previous 
summer. The first legislature was to consist of six- 
teen senators, including two from San Francisco, and 
thirty-seven assemblymen, including five from the 
city. The capital was transferred from Monterey to 
San Jose. As there was no time to be lost, and there 
was no prospect of having any proper government till 
the state authorities should assume power, the people, 
when voting on the constitution, also elected a full 
ticket of state officials and two congressmen, though the 
population was not large enough for more than one." 
Peter H. Burnett was chosen governor, and Edward 
Gilbert and George W. Wright, congressmen. The 
constitution provided that in case of its adoption the 
administration chosen at the same time should enter 
upon its duties without waiting for the action of con- 
gress. This course superseded Governor Riley, who, 
in accordance with the spirit of his instructions, or 
confidential advices from Washington, on the twentieth 
of December issued an order relinquishing the admin- 
istration of civil affairs in California to the state 
10 



146 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

administration, which had been installed five days 
before. 

Sec. 68. Summer of 1849. In the summer of 
1849 San Francisco was a remarkable town. It cov- 
ered an area of about half a mile square, the bounda- 
ries being California, Powell and Vallejo streets, and 
the water liue, which for nearly a quarter of a mile 
south of Jackson street was near Montgomery street. 
Many of the people lived in tents, and most of the 
remainder in shanties or mere shells of houses. The 
tents and shanties were in some places built along the 
sides of trails or roads over the hills, without regard 
to the lines of the streets. The hill from Vallejo to 
California street, above Stockton, had much chapar- 
ral. There was no grading, planking, or paving in 
any of the streets; nor was there any wharf extend- 
ing out to deep water. There were two small wharves, 
one about seventy feet long between Sacramento and 
California, its outer end being west of Sansome street 
and having five feet of water at low tide; the other, 
perhaps thirty feet long, on Commercial street, with 
not more than two feet of water at low tide at its 
outer end. This smaller wharf was used mainly for 
row-boats. The chief landing-place, besides the 
wharves, was at Clark's Point, near the intersection of 
Broadway and Battery streets, where the deep water 
came close up to the rocky shore. The beach along 
the front of the town was a sticky mud ; south of Pine 
street it was sandy. 

Among the notable buildings were the custom- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 147 

house (an adobe building of one story on the south- 
western corner of Brenham Place and Washington 
street), the city hotel (an adobe of one story and a 
half on the south-western corner of Clay and Kearny), 
Mr. Mowry's dwelling (one story adobe on the north- 
eastern corner of Broadway and Powell), the adobe res- 
idence of Senora Briones(on the north-eastern corner of 
Powell and Filbert), a brick dwelling on the north- 
western corner of Washington and Powell, (originally 
of two stories, but now of four, two others having been 
added beneath, because the streets in front of it have 
been cut down about sixteenfeet), and the Parker House 
(which was built at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, 
and rented at fifteen thousand dollars per month for a 
gambling-house), a two-story frame building on the site 
of the old city hall, fronting on Portsmouth Square. 
The south-eastern corner of Kearny and Washington 
streets w^as occupied by a large tent called the El 
Dorado, and that, too, was used for gambling. The 
Parker House was burned in December, 1849, and 
having been rebuilt, was converted into the Jenny 
Lind theatre, Thomas Ma^uire bein^ the manager. 
It was burned again in May, 1850, and in June, 1851; 
and after the last fire the theater was rebuilt of brick 
with a stone front, which still stands as a part of the 
old city hall. 

The population was not counted in 1849, but it in- 
creased rapidly. The number of inhabitants was esti- 
mated to be two thousand in February, three thousand 
in March, and fi\e thousand in July. In November, at 



148 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the election on the adoption of the constitution, and 
the choice of a full state ticket, an occasion that ex- 
cited much interest, only two thousand and fifty-six 
votes were cast; and as no previous residence was re- 
quired for voting, it is probable that more than one 
half the people of the city at that time were author- 
ized to vote. After making all allowances for lack of 
interest among new comers, and the unwillingness to 
neglect profitable occupations for the sake of going to 
the polls, the entire population probably did not ex- 
ceed eight thousand. 

Sec. 69. Hounds, Before the installation of Geary 
as first alcalde, there was no systematic administration 
of justice, and criminals not content with exemption 
from public prosecution, organized themselves into an 
association called "the hounds," held parades and made 
attacks in open day upon Spanish- Americans, who 
were assailed under the pretext that they were for- 
eigners and were taking away the gold of the Ameri- 
cans without any right. One excuse for this hostility 
was an unauthorized proclamation published by Gen- 
eral Persifer Smith, at Panama, in January, where he 
had been told that the aliens, especially the Spanish- 
Americans, were becoming so numerous in California 
that neither gold nor room would be left for Ameri- 
cans. Notwithstanding the animosity of "the hounds" 
towards foreigners, many of them were new-comers 
from Australia, and English sailors who had never 
been in the Atlantic states. These fellows were more 
zealous for the rights of Americans than the Ameri- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 149 

cans themselves. At night they were ready to rob 
without regard to nationality, and at last they became 
so outrageous and the inefficiency of Alcalde Leaven- 
worth so manifest, that on the sixteenth of July a pub- 
lic meeting of citizens demanded the arrest and pun- 
ishment of the leaders. A popular court was organ- 
ized, attorneys for the accused were appointed, and 
after a fair trial two of the hound leaders were sen- 
tenced to ten years imprisonment and others to shorter 
terms; some were required to give bonds for keeping 
the peace, and all were frightened so that their or- 
ganization was abandoned and most of them fled, some 
of them going off by sea. Those sentenced to impris- 
onment were soon released, as the judgment was not 
authorized by law or signed by any official, but they 
understood that San Francisco was not a safe place for 
them and they avoided it. 

Sec. 70. Auctions. There was a wonderful dispro- 
portion between the vast amount of merchandise daily 
arriving and the scanty room in the store-houses of the 
town; for this reason, and partly also because the mer- 
chants of San Francisco were unknown by reputation 
or even by name to many of those who shipped goods 
to California, it became a common custom to sell car- 
goes by auction, the master, supercargo, or consignee 
selecting the auctioneer soon after his arrival. A man 
occupying a shanty with a sign " auction " over the 
front door, would sell property worth millions in a 
year. As capital, credit and fire-proof store-room in- 
creased, the auction sales lost much of their relative 



150 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

prominence, but they still hold an important place in 
the business of San Francisco. 

Sec. 71. More Lot Sales. While adventurers con- 
tinued to crowd in at the rate of several thousand 
every month, while the city grew and its trade in- 
creased with marvelous rapidity, while the harbor 
was filled with large vessels deserted by sailors, and 
while the gold dust, notwithstanding the large expor- 
tation, was accumulating by millions, the people were 
not indifferent on the subject of town lots. Nearly 
all the lots surveyed by O'Farrell had been sold before 
midsummer of 1849; and on the third of October the 
ayuntamiento ordered city surveyor Eddy to extend 
the survey north of Post street to Larkin street, and 
south of Post to Leavenworth and Eighth streets. 
The lots thus added to the city map, were soon offered 
for sale at auction, and some remaining unsold, the 
alcalde was authorized to sell them at private sale, 
the price for the hundred- vara lot being five hundred 
dollars, and for the fifty-vara lot two hundred dollars. 
These lots are now worth on the average several hun- 
dred times as much as they were in 1849, and some 
of them a thousand times as much. But the purchase 
did not look very promising then. Several of the 
buyers boasted of their prudence in examining the 
land in advance, so that they could get lots which had 
enough scrub oak for firewood to return the greater 
part of the price, and thus they could not lose much. 

Sec. 72. Inland Steamboats. The arrival of the 
ocean steamer "McKira," on the third of October, 



THE GOLDEN ERA 151 

was an important addition to the small steam fleet of 
the North Pacific. She was the first steamboat to 
run regularly between San Francisco and Sacramento, 
beginning her trips three weeks after she entered the 
Golden Gate. Previously most of the passengers and 
all the freight went by sailing vessels, which rarely 
made the distance in less than four days, and some- 
times required two weeks, especially in seasons of high 
water or contrary winds. Occasionally passengers 
would go to Benicia in a sailing vessel, and from there 
take a row-boat, or walk or ride across the country. 
There were no stages, and teamsters could find the 
most profitable employment in hauling from Sacra- 
mento to the mines. The " McKim" was a slow boat, 
but she could make the distance of one hundred and 
twenty miles in fourteen hours, going up one day and 
coming down the next. This was a matter of vast 
convenience and economy, even when she charged 
thirty dollars fare for the trip. She had been running 
only a few weeks when the " Senator," a faster boat 
and much better fitted for the business, arrived and 
began to run to Sacramento, taking alternate days, so 
that there was a boat each way every day. The two 
boats were able to carry all the passengers and most 
of the freight. The "Gold-hunter" arrived early in 1850, 
and being a superior boat replaced the "McKim." 

Sec. 73. Plank Road. The demand for some 
communication with the Mission, better than the road 
over loose sand winding about to avoid some hills and 
crossing others which could not be avoided, led to the 



152 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

passing of an ordinance in November, 1850, granting 
a franchise for the Mission plank road, as it was 
called, running by Kearny, Third and Mission streets, 
from California to Fifteenth street, a distance of three 
and a quarter miles. The work was commenced 
within a few weeks after the passage of the ordi- 
nance, and was finished the next spring. The toll on 
it was half a dollar for a horse and cart, and a dollar 
for a four-horse team. Mission street was preferred 
for the route to Market, because the latter was occu- 
pied from Second to Fifth street by a high ridge, and 
Kearny was preferred to Montgomery because the 
latter would have required a longer and more costly 
route. The chief expense of the enterprise was the 
grading, including deep cuts through several sand 
hills crossing Kearny street. One of these was near 
Post street, and in that cut, as a place which team- 
sters could not avoid, the toll-gate was established. 
One of the features of the road was a bridge about 
a hundred yards long built across a swamp that ex- 
tended from near the corner of Mission and Seventh 
streets in an eastward direction to Mission cove. The 
road company made a contract for the construction of 
this bridge upon a pile foundation, but that plan had 
to be abandoned, because to the astonishment and dis- 
may of the contractor, the first pile, forty feet long, 
at the first blow of the pile-driver sank out of sight; 
indicating that there was no bottom within forty feet 
to support a bridge. One pile having disappeared, the 
contractor hoisted another immediately over the first, 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 153 

and in two blows drove the second one down beyond 
the reach of the hammer. It was supposed that the 
second pile had driven the first one under it, and if so, 
there was no foundation within eighty feet. The 
project of piling was abandoned, and cribs of logs 
were laid upon the turf so as to get a wider basis than 
that offered by piles. The bridge thus made always 
shook when crossed by heavy teams, and gradually 
settled till it was in the middle about five feet below 
the original level. 

The cost of the road was ninety-six thousand dol- 
lars, about thirty thousand dollars per mile, a sum 
that would now be sufficient to supply a good rail- 
road. The stock of the company was one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, and the dividends amounted 
to nearly eight per cent, a month on the investment. 
As the city grew and the number of people at the 
Mission increased, they began to talk about opening 
a free road on a parallel street; and to ward off that 
danger, the plank road company obtained another 
franchise for a road on Folsom street, which could be 
graded at a much less expense than Howard or Mar- 
ket. The Folsom street road ran for nearly half a 
mile across swamps, between Third and Eighth streets, 
and the builders had serious difficulty in filling up 
with sand until a permanent road-bed was made. In 
1854 a high tide overflowed the road between Fourth 
and Fifth streets, and floated off the planking. The 
tolls on the two roads paid about three per cent, a 
month net on the capital invested from 1853 to 1858, 
when they became free. 



154 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 74. Winter of 1849. The winter of 1849-50 
was very wet. The streets were soon worked into a 
deep mud by the traffic, and in many places it became 
little better than a swamp. Not unfrequently men 
were in danger of sinking out of sight in the mire, 
and it was a common occurrence to see them in up to 
their waists. Two horses sank so deep in the mud in 
Montgomery street, between Clay and Sacramento, 
that they w^ere left there to die; and die they did of 
starvation, while hundreds of merciful men would 
have been glad to relieve them, but could not. Be- 
tween Washington and Jackson streets, three men 
got into the mud of Montgomery street at night, 
probably in a state of intoxication, and were suffo- 
cated. Dirt and brush were thrown into the street at 
some of the crossings, but no travel or lumber could 
be hauled to the places most in need of improvement, 
nor was there any arrangement to pay for such work 
out of any city fund. Labor and materials of all 
kinds could not be obtained for less than five or in 
some cases even twenty times as much as in New 
York, and all that could be done was to lay a board 
here and there, or throw a box, barrel or a keg into 
the mud. The people waded through the winter as 
well as they could. 

The abundant rain was, however, not an unmixed 
evil. The merchants soon observed that gold dust 
was far more abundant than before. The monthly 
yield of the mines was three times greater after No- 
vember than it had been in the summer. Thirty thou- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 155 

sand men at least of the new arrivals did not get well 
at work until the wet weather commenced. The rise 
of the rivers drove the old miners from the river bars 
where they had been employed, and they were aston- 
ished to find that the ravines offered far more exten- 
sive, and to the majority, more remunerative diggings. 
The vast increase in the production was soon felt as a 
stimulus to the trade of San Francisco, which made 
rapid advances so soon as the streets began to dry in 
the spring of 1850. The monthly gold yield of 1848 
averaged perhaps three hundred thousand dollars; that 
of 1849, one million five hundred thousand dollars; and 
that of 1850, three millions of dollars. At any rate 
the supply of dust increased with great rapidity, and 
also the demand for supplies. 

Sec. 75. 1850, The admission of California leofal- 
ized the state administration chosen in the previous 
year, the statutes adopted at the first session of the 
legislature — including a city charter for San Francisco 
— and the election of a full set of city officials in May 
with John W. Geary as first mayor. The exportation 
of gold, as reported at the custom-house, amounted to 
twenty-seven millions six hundred thousand dollars, 
and the number of immigrants by sea was thirty-six 
thousand, and by land probably twenty thousand more. 
A federal census taken in June showed a total popula- 
tion of ninety-two thousand five hundred and ninety- 
seven in the state, but did not include San Francisco, 
Santa Clara and Contra Costa, the returns from which 
were lost. These counties two years later had forty- 



156 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

five thousand seven hundred and four inhabitants, and 
doubtless had thirty thousand in 1850, so that the en- 
tire population of the state was then not less than one 
hundred and twenty -two thousand. The taking of the 
census was an unprofitable business in those days, and 
was done in a manner that deserved little confidence. 
The building on Brenham Place, previously occu- 
pied for the city offices, being no longer adequate for 
the increased business, the Graham House, a four- 
story wooden building on the northwest corner of 
Kearny and Pacific streets, built for a hotel, was bought 
for a city hall at the price of one hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. The new government soon got into 
full operation, though the officials as a class were reck- 
less and extravagant. The council voted themselves 
salaries of six thousand dollars each, but as- their work 
occupied only two evenings of the week, a storm of 
popular indignation arose, and the ordinance was de- 
feated by the mayor's veto. Not satisfied with this 
discreditable check, when the admission of the state 
was celebrated they voted themselves large gold med- 
als, commemorative of the occasion, but as their liber- 
ality to themselves was severely condemned by public 
opinion, the municipal medals were never exhibited 
with pride. 

Sec. 76. Second Great Fire. The second great 
fire occurred on the fourth of May and burned three 
blocks, of which two were between Clay, Jackson, 
Kearny and Montgomery, and one bounded by Wash- 
ington, Kearny, Jackson and Dupont. The first fire 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 157 

in the previous December had injured the gamblers 
and speculators chiefly; the second fell severely on the 
merchants, who lost about three million dollars. The 
third conflagration, six weeks later, on the fourteenth 
of June, swept away everything between Clay, Cali- 
fornia, Kearny and the water front, which was then 
near Sansome. The amount of the loss was about the 
same as in the preceding fire. The ground burned 
over was in a few months covered with better build- 
ings than before; and the growth and business of the 
city appeared to be rather stimulated than checked by 
the disaster. A fire-limit ordinance followed, pro- 
hibiting the erection of buildings covered with cotton 
cloth, but placing^ no restriction upon the use of wood. 
The purpose was rather to improve the appearance 
than to increase the security of the city. Numerous 
houses arrived in pieces on shipboard from eastern 
cities and were put up, some of them south of Market 
street in Happy Valley, which became the chief resi- 
dence district of the city. The first directory was 
published in September, and had two thousand five 
hundred names. 

Sec. 77. Legislative Work. The legislature met 
in January, and elected W. M. Gwin and J. C. Fre- 
mont federal senators. These two, like Gilbert and 
Wright were residents of San Francisco, which thus 
received four of the highest political honors which could 
then be conferred by California. No American stat- 
utory law having ever been adopted, and the law of 
Mexico having been superseded, the legislature was 



158 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

called upon to transact an immense amount of busi- 
ness, which was wonderfully well done, the circum- 
stances of the case being considered. Among the bills 
passed was one to incorporate the city of San Fran- 
cisco: the charter limits on the west being: a line near 
the present Buchanan street, and on the south a line 
near Santa Clara street, both lines being considerably 
beyond any street surveys made up to that time. The 
limit on the north and east was the water front, and 
the south-western corner was near the Mission church. 
The area thus included was about two thousand seven 
hundred acres. The charter declared that the city 
should be the successor of the pueblo of Yerba Buena. 
The city government was to be intrusted to a common 
council in two chambers, the aldermen and assistant 
aldermen, each board containing eio-ht members. The 
chief executive officer was the mayor. At an election 
held on the first of May, under the charter, Geary 
was chosen mayor, and all the other city offices were 
filled. Thus the city government was at last put into 
complete operation under American law. Besides the 
city of San Francisco, the legislature organized the 
county of the same name, including the entire penin- 
sula for a distance of thirty miles from the Golden 
Gate, the southern boundary being San Francisquito 
creek. The county of San Mateo, afterwards organ- 
ized, took about fifteen sixteenths of the area of the 
original county of San Francisco. The county had 
its legislative, executive and judicial officers, so that 
there were two local administrations in the city. 






THE GOLDEN ERA. 159 

Sec. 78. Admission. The Californian senators and 
congressmen reached Washington in February, 1850, 
and, on the thirteenth of that month, President Taylor 
transmitted the constitution to the United States sen- 
ate, with a message recommending the admission of 
the state. The ultra southerners did everything to 
delay or defeat the bill, which was drawn up by Doug- 
las, as chairman of the committee on territories. Nu- 
merous amendments were proposed, and secession was 
openly threatened if the bill should be adopted. At 
last it passed the senate on the tenth of August, by a 
vote of thirty-four ayes against eighteen noes. The 
latter were all southerners, and among them were 
Jefferson Davis, Wm. P. King, J. Y. Mason, Pierre 
Soule, and P. M. T. Hunter. Four days later ten 
southerners, including Davis, presented a protest, 
which the senate refused to receive. The following is 
an extract from it : 

We have dissented from this bill because it gives the sanction 
of law, and thus imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a 
portion of the inhabitants of California, by which an odious dis- 
crimination is made against the property of the fifteen slave- 
holding states of the union, who are thus deprived of that por- 
tion of equality which the constitution so manifestly designs, 
and which constitutes the onry sure and stable foundation on 
which this union can repose. * * * Against this conclusion 
[the dedication of all California to freedom] we must now and 
forever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of 
those whose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to 
the peace and equality of the states which we represent, and 
must lead, if persisted in, to the dissolution of that confederacy 
in which the slave-holding states have not sought more than 
equality, and in which they will not be content to remain with less. 



160 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The threat contained in this protest was far more 
moderate in language than the resolutions adopted at 
many public meetings held in various southern states. 
A mass meeting at Montgomery, Alabama, on the 
seventeenth of August, declared that the application 
of California for admission was a stupendous fraud, and 
that the southern states ought to take measures to 
vindicate their rights — secession beins^ hinted at in 
unmistakable terms. The pretext for the opposition 
was that slavery was excluded from the territory south 
of latitude thirty- six degrees thirty minutes, but the 
admission of a state which would give a majority to 
freedom in the senate was scarcely less offensive to the 
slave interest, though it was not considered politic to 
base the opposition on that point. The temper of the 
north was up, however, and all the attempts to throw 
the Californian bill into the unfinished business failed. 
On the seventh of September it came to a vote in the 
house of representatives, and passed — ayes, one hun- 
and fifty; noes, fifty-six, the latter all southern men. 
Two days later the president signed the bill, so the 
attempt to devote the southern part of California to 
slavery failed; the state was admitted, and the free 
states obtained a majority in the United States senate. 

Sec. 79. Rejoicing. The news of the passage of 
the bill by the Senate was received with much satis- 
faction in California, and it was confidently asserted 
and generally believed that there would be no long 
delay in the lower house. When the time came near 
for the arrival of the October steamer from Panama, 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 1G1 

the people of San Francisco were waiting to hear 
that their state had been admitted. On the morning 
of the eighteenth signal guns were heard, and persons 
who had been watching on the hills, came rushing 
down into the town with the report that the mail 
steamer had entered the Golden Gate with an un- 
usual display of bunting, indicating that there was 
some special cause of rejoicing. It was understood 
at once to mean admission, and the news flew over 
the town as fast as men could cany it. The story of 
the reception and celebration of the news is thus told 
in "The Annals of San Francisco:" 

October 29th. This day was set apart to celebrate the ad- 
mission of California into the Union. When, on the eighteenth 
instant the mail steamer ' ' Oregon " was entering the bay, she 
fired repeated preconcerted signal guns which warned the citi- 
zens of the glorious news. Immediately the whole of the 
inhabitants were afoot, and grew half wild with excitement 
until they heard definitely that the tidings were as they had 
expected. Business of almost every description was instantly 
suspended, the courte adjourned in the midst of their work, 
and men rushed from every house into the streets and towards 
the wharves, to hail the harbinger of the welcome news. "When 
the steamer rounded Clark's Point and came in front of the 
city, her masts literally covered with flags and signals, a uni- 
versal shout arose from ten thousand voices on the wharves, in 
the streets, upon the hills, house-tops, and the world of ship- 
ping in the bay: again and again were huzzas repeated, adding 
more and more every moment to the intense excitement and 
unprecedented enthusiasm. Every public place was soon 
crowded with eager seekers after the particulars of the news, 
and the first papers issued an hour after tho appearance of the 
" Oregon" were sold by the newsboys at from one to five dol- 
lars each. The enthusiasm increased as the day advanced. 
11 



i 



162 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Flags of every nation were run up on a thousand masts and 
peaks and staffs, and a couple of large guns placed upon the 
Plaza were constantly discharged. At night every public thor- 
oughfare was crowded with the rejoicing populace. Almost 
every large building, all the public saloons and places of amuse- 
ment were brilliantly illuminated; music from a hundred bands 
assisted the excitement; numerous balls and parties were hasti- 
ly got up; bonfires blazed upon the hills, and rockets were 
incessantly thrown into the air, until the dawn of the following 
day. Such an occasion beyond all others demanded a proper 
celebration at San Francisco; and the citizens, accordingly, one 
and all united to make the day memorable. On the twenty- 
ninth instant, a procession of the various public bodies and 
inhabitants of the city, with appropriate banners, devices, 
music and the like, marched through the principal streets to 
the plaza. The Chinese turned out in large numbers on this 
occasion, and formed a striking feature in the ceremonies of 
the day. The Hon. Nathaniel Bennett, of the supreme court, 
delivered a suitable oration to the people on the plaza, and an 
ode, composed for the occasion by Mrs. Wills, was sung by a 
full choir. During the day repeated discharges of fire-arms 
and a proper salute from great guns carried off some of the 
popular excitement, while the shipping displayed innumerable 
flags. In the evening public bonfires and fireworks were ex- 
hibited from Telegraph Hill, Eincon Point, and the islands in 
the bay. The houses were likewise brilliantly illuminated, and 
the rejoicings were everywhere loudly continued during the 
night. Some five hundred gentlemen and three hundred ladies 
met at the grandest public ball that had yet been witnessed in 
the city, and danced and made merry till daylight, in the 
pride and joy of their hearts that California was truly now the 
thirty-first state of the Union. 

Sec. 80. Clipper Ships. The California clippers, 
sailing vessels measuring one thousand tons or more, 
with sharp bows, sides modeled with careful regard 
for ease of motion through the water, tall masts, long 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 163 

bowsprit and yards, and capacity to carry a great 
spread of canvas, made their appearance in the latter 
part of this year, in answer to the demand for the 
quick transportation of large quantities of freight to 
San Francisco. They were as much superior in size 
and elegance of marine architecture to the Indiamen 
of England as these were to the clumsy luggers of 
Holland. Time being precious in reaching the golden 
market, they charged for several years on certain 
kinds of freight fifty dollars a ton, or about four times 
as much as had been paid usually to sailing vessels 
for voyages of the same distance; and in return they 
kept all sail set to the limit of safety. They made 
the trip from New York to San Francisco often in 
less than three months, and ordinarily took one third 
less time than the old style ships. With a good 
breeze, they could leave ocean steamers behind. Sail- 
ors saw them at first with amazement and have not 
yet lost their admiration, though clipper ships have 
ceased to be the exclusive possession of American 
shipowners, or to be employed entirely in the Cali- 
fornian trade. The early clippers earned nearly 
enough to pay for their cost by the freight of a single 
voyage; and on several occasions when the cargo was 
shipped by the owners, the profit on it was twice the 
cost of the ship. 

The names of the early clippers, unlike the "Eliza," 
the " Euphemia," the " Thomas H. Perkins," the 
" Mary Jane," and the titles fashionable for the slow 
ships, were frequently suggestive of the romance of a 



164 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

sailor's life. The " White Squall," the "Flying 
Cloud," the " Typhoon," the " Trade Wind," and the 
" Sovereign of the Seas," were among the notable 
pioneer vessels that did honor to the American flag 
on both the great oceans. As the expenses of lying 
at a wharf in San Francisco were very high, one hun- 
dred dollars or even two hundred dollars a day for 
large ships, it was feared that the long time required 
for discharging two thousand tons of freight, and tak- 
ing in a cargo of ballast, would eat up much of the 
profits. Instead, however, of taking a month for the 
work, the stevedores, under the stimulus of extra pay, 
succeeded in doing in a day what elsewhere consumed 
a week. 

Sec. 81. Pioneer Society. Some of the citizens of 
San Francisco, impressed with the remarkable events 
in which they had taken an active part, in August or- 
ganized the Society of California Pioneers, to which 
anybody who had arrived before the preceding Janu- 
ary might be admitted. Much fault has been found 
with them of late that the admission of the state was 
not the limit of date, but such a limit could not be 
fixed when the state had not been admitted. 

Sec. 82. Wharf Contracts. As the company own- 
ing Commercial street wharf made an immense profit 
from it, and as there was ten times as much business 
as it could accommodate, it was evident that notwith- 
standing the high cost of wharves, they offered excel- 
lent opportunities for investments, so there was a rush 
for franchises. In October, 1850, Market street wharf 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 165 

had extended out from the shore line six hundred feet 
into the bay; California, four hundred; Sacramento, 
eight hundred; Clay, nine hundred; Washington, two 
hundred and seventy-five; Jackson, five hundred and 
fifty-two; Pacific, five hundred and twenty-five, and 
Broadway, two hundred and fifty. Other wharves or 
piers running along the water front, and named after 
individual owners, were fifteen hundred feet long*. 
The aggregate length of all the wharves was more 
than six thousand feet, and the cost to that date 
about one million dollars. 

Soon after the wharf builders began their march 
out into the bay, the graders started to follow, crowd- 
ing upon their heels. The first filling in of a water 
lot was done by Captain Folsom, on California street, 
west of the site of the present Bank of California, 
and although the work was extremely expensive, it 
was immediately recognized as a good investment, and 
others imitated the example. After the wharves were 
built out on Clay and the parallel streets into the bay, 
it was found convenient to build cross streets on piles, 
thus inclosing the blocks, and in more than a score of 
instances shutting in old hulks which had lonsf been 
dismantled and had been used as storehouses. Of 
these, the "Niantic" subsequently became the most 
notable. She measured four hundred and fifty tons 
and was hauled up at high water to the lot . on the 
north-west corner of Sansome and Clay streets. Her 
masts were taken out, her rigging and some of her 
ballast removed, piles were driven on each side to 



166 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

keep her from turning upon her side, and she was 
used for storing merchandise. The May fire of 1851 
destroyed all save that part of her hull below the 
level of the ground and some of her ribs, and on the 
site was erected a hotel called the "Niantic," the 
foundation of which rested on the remains of the hull. 
•In 1872 the wooden building was torn down and the 
hull dug out to make room for the foundation and cel- 
lar of the brick building which now occupies the 
place. In the course of their digging the laborers 
found that the bottom of the hull was filled with dirt, 
covering various articles of merchandise, including 
several dozens of champagne, which had been buried 
for twenty-one years. The dirt was doubtless washed 
in on the occasion of the fire, and nobody had in the 
meantime thought it worth while to examine what lay 
buried there. 

Sec. 83. 1851. In 1851, the gold manifested at 
the San Francisco custom-house for shipment amount- 
ed to thirty-four million dollars, and the number of 
immigrants by sea was twenty -seven thousand. It 
was now considered certain that the gold mines would 
not be exhausted in a life-time; that they would con- 
tribute immensely to the wealth of the nation, and 
that California would continue for years to attract 
immigrants — points about which there had previously 
been serious doubts. The establishment of a semi- 
monthly mail was ordered; the statute " to settle pri- 
vate land claims in California," as it was called, though 
a more appropriate term, as suggested by its results, 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 1G7 

would have been, " An act to despoil owners of land 
under Mexican grants," was adopted; large federal 
appropriations were obtained for various public works 
in California. All these measures were carried 
through congress mainly by the influence of Senator 
Gwin, who now rose into prominence as the leading 
representative of the state in congress. His associate, 
Senator Fremont, and the two representatives Gilbert 
and Wright, were young men without legislative ex- 
perience, and their terms expired in a few months 
after they took their seats. Gwin had been in con- 
gress before, had many personal friends at Wash- 
ington, was in political sympathy with men occupying 
high positions in the administration, was industrious, 
and had the ability and tact required for success in 
American politics. 

The legislature confirmed all the sales of water lots 
ill the city previously made without legal authority 
by any ayuntamiento, town council, or alcalde, thus 
perfecting the titles of the occupants, and putting an 
end to much uneasiness amongf the citizens. A new 
legislative apportionment gave the city one ninth of 
the members of the legislature, whereas previously 
it had one eighth. The city debt had grown to one 
million and a half dollars, and as the current expendi- 
tures were equal to any sum that could be raised by 
taxation, the legislature had to pass a funding act. 
The police was inefficient, and the frequency of un- 
punished crime led in February to the organization of 
a vigilance committee, which in July and August 



168 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

hanged three murderers after extra-constitutional but 
deliberate and orderly trials. Two great fires in May 
and June swept away property valued at thirteen mil- 
lion dollars. The Jenny Lind theater, now the old 
city hall, the American theater on the north-east 
corner of Sansome and Halleck streets, and two free 
schools established under the authority of the state, 
were opened in the last quarter of the year. 

Meantime the city continued to grow in population 
and increase in business. The adventurers became citi- 
zens; tents gave way to frame houses, and frames 
gave way to brick. It became a matter of vast im- 
portance to obtain security against fire, and the erec- 
tion of fire-proof buildings was commenced. 

Sec. 84. Fourth and Fifth Fires. The fourth 
fire, called the great fire, as surpassing all the others, 
came on the anniversary of the May fire of the prev- 
ious year, and destroyed property valued at seven 
million dollars. It really commenced a little before 
twelve on the night of the third of May, but was 
called the fire of the fourth. It swept away the en- 
tire business portion of the city, and that included 
nearly everything, for there were few families or fine 
dwellings in those days. The burned district was 
three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile 
wide, and more than fifteen hundred houses were de- 
stroyed. Sixteen blocks were burned, including ten 
bounded by Pine, Jackson, Kearny and Sansome; five 
bounded by Sansome, Battery, Sacramento and Broad- 
way; one bounded by Kearny, Montgomery, Wash- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 1G9 

inofton and Jackson, and fractions of five other blocks. 
Many of the brick buildings supposed to be fire-proof, 
were unable to withstand the intense heat of half a 
mile of flame fanned by a high wind. Vast quanti- 
ties of goods were destroyed, and the destruction of 
these contributed greatly to swell the loss. Among 
the buildings burned were the custom-house, the 
Jenny Lind theater, the Union hotel, on the north- 
eastern corner of Kearny and Commercial streets, 
and the banks of Page, Bacon & Co., Burgoyne & Co., 
and Wells & Co. The banks of Argenti, James King, 
and H. M. Naglee, escaped. These six were the 
principal banks of San Francisco in those days; not 
one of them remains, nor is any partner of either of 
them engaged in banking in this city now. The El 
Dorado and the Verandah, both gambling houses, on 
the eastern corners of Kearny and Washington, suc- 
cessfully defied the flames. The custom-house, a 
three-story building on the north-western corner of 
Montgomery and California streets, was burned, with 
a large amount of goods. A number of persons 
perished in the fire — how many was not known. In 
some cases men stayed inside of the brick stores with 
barrels of water, intending to risk their lives in the 
hopes of saving their buildings and goods. Twelve 
men were shut up in Naglee's building for three 
hours, in the midst of intense heat and almost suffo- 
cating smoke, but they survived. Six who remained 
in the store of Taaffe, McCahill & Co., were not so 
fortunate; the store was destroyed, and they lost their 
lives in it. 



170 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The fifth and last fire (loss two million dollars), 
that of June 22, 1851, began on Pacific, near Powell, 
and burned eight blocks, bounded by Broadway, Jack- 
son, Powell and Montgomery; three blocks between 
Stockton, Montgomery, Jackson and Washington; and 
fractions of five other blocks. The principal buildings 
burned were the city hall (formerly the Graham 
House), the city hospital, the Jenny Lind theater, 
and the old adobe on the plaza. The losses may ap- 
pear great for a city which had so few fine buildings, 
but a shanty in those days with its merchandise might 
cost almost as much as a palace now. 

These fires exercised great influence upon the politics, 
building and trade of the city. The May fire in 1851 
was attributed to incendiarism; and it was reported 
that one man charged with arson was beaten to death 
while the fire was raging. The amount of property ex- 
posed in the streets was so great that the citizens organ- 
ized into a patrol or committee of vigilance, which soon 
extended its jurisdiction, and hanged murderers as 
well as protected property. Merchants, unable to 
secure their property on land, put their goods into 
store ships, and the harbor was filled with old hulks 
until 1854, when the brick stores, really fire-proof, 
began to furnish room and safety on shore. Unable 
to make bricks or to cut stone, except at terrific 
prices, orders were sent abroad for incombustible 
building materials. Granite was brought from China 
and Quincy; lava from Honolulu; and bricks from 
Sydney, New York and London. 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 171 

The scenes at confl aerations were as remarkable as 
was the city itself. Most of the inhabitants were 
men between the ages of twenty and forty, of rare 
activity and energy, and deeply interested in protect- 
ing the place against destruction. At the cry of 
fire, they rushed out, anxious to check the flames at 
the start, and the streets became the scene of won- 
derful confusion. At first there was a current of peo- 
ple running at full speed to the fire, with engines and 
hose carts thundering over the sonorous planks; fore- 
men shouting through their hoarse speaking-trumpets, 
while the men at the ropes yelled mutual encourage- 
ment for higher speed. When the conflagration be- 
came large, the scene was terrific and sublime. The 
roaring of the fire, the crackling of the timbers, and 
the shouts of the firemen and of the citizens en^a^ed 
in saving merchandise or furniture, combined to make 
a frightful noise. The flames of the light pine and 
redwood shot up in immense sheets, dense clouds of 
smoke made a contrast to the bright fire, and the 
furious gusts of wind carried up into the air burning 
shingles, and large pieces of blazing wood. The fire- 
men rushed desperately into the most dangerous posi- 
tions with their hose, their axes, their hooks and lad- 
ders; and an excited crowd of Americans, Frenchmen, 
Germans, Mexicans, and Chinamen struggled to carry 
away furniture, clothing, and other valuables beyond 
the reach of the danger. Man and fire engaged in a 
fierce but brief struggle; in a few hours the destruc- 
tive element had exhausted its fury; millions of prop- 



172 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

erty had been destroyed; hundreds of men before 
wealthy were almost penniless, and smouldering ruins 
were all that remained of costly edifices and precious 
merchandise. 

The day after the fire another wonderful scene was 
presented. Instead of sorrow, idleness or despair, the 
city seemed to be gifted with new life. The ground 
burned over was covered with men pouring water 
upon the embers ; wagons were busy everywhere haul- 
ing away the ashes or unloading bricks and lumber; 
the saw and hammer were heard on every hand. The 
price of labor and building materials rose suddenly; 
the merchant of the day before had become a laborer 
or mechanic, and within a week many of the houses 
were already open for business again. 

Sec. 85. Vigilance Committee of 1851. On the 
twenty-second of February, a mob collected to pun- 
ish two men arrested under the names of Stuart 
and Windred on a charge of having robbed and tried 
to murder C. J. Jansen. Though grave crimes had 
been committed in large numbers, none of the of- 
fenders had been punished. The police were ineffi- 
cient if not criminal, and the judges and prosecuting 
attorneys showed no zeal in their business. The 
people saw that if they wanted an effective adminis- 
tration of justice they must take charge of it them- 
selves, and accordingly about three thousand citizens 
gathered at the City Hall to take decisive action. 
Twelve men were selected as a jury; W. T. Coleman 
was appointed public prosecutor, and D. D. Shattuck 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 173 

and Hall McAllister, lawyers, were designated to de- 
fend the accused, who were then tried. Jansen testi- 
fied that the prisoner called Stuart, who however 
truly declared that his name was Burdue, was one of 
the robbers who attacked him in his store on the 
nineteenth of February, and as the prosecuting wit- 
ness bore a good reputation, and had no known motive 
for perjury, the multitude were convinced. But three 
of the jury refused to convict, whereupon many of 
the outsiders demanded the acceptance of the verdict 
of the majority, and cried, "hang them !" being dis- 
posed to execute Windred too, though Jansen did not 
recognize him distinctly, and the chief evidence against 
him was that he had been caught in Burdue's com- 
pany. The leaders would not disregard the decision 
of their own jury, but they had great difficulty in 
preventing the execution of the prisoners by the mob, 
which surrounded and threatened the City Hall till 
one o'clock the next morningf. Burdue was dis- 
charged. 

In the first week of June some of the same persons, 
who had been active in the previous February, held 
meetings, and formed " a committee of vigilance," with 
a constitution, records and officials. The main pur- 
pose was to punish incendiaries suspected of having set 
the great fires, but they soon found other work to do. 
They had scarcely organized, when, on the evening of 
June tenth, John Jenkins, reputed to be an ex-convict 
from Sydney, was caught in a boat while carrying off 
a small safe which he obtained by burglary from a 



174 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

store on Commercial street. The evidence against him 
was conclusive, and the committee, after trying him in 
its rooms, pronounced a verdict of guilty, and sen- 
tenced him to death. The multitude outside approved 
the verdict, and at two o'clock in the morning he was 
hanged to a beam of an adobe building on Brenham 
Place, opposite to Portsmouth Square. 

Sec. 86. Coroner s Verdict. A coroner's jury, on 
the twelfth of June, found a verdict that Jenkins was 
executed by certain persons styling themselves " a 
committee of vigilance," of which nine persons, 
whose names were given, were members. The publi- 
cation of this verdict was immediately followed by a 
manifesto signed by one hundred and eighty-two citi- 
zens of the committee, expressing their surprise at the 
invidious verdict after the signers had informed the 
jury that they were all participators in the trial and 
execution, and declaring that the nine persons named 
were unnecessarily picked out from the members of 
the committee, when the jury had full evidence that 
all were equally implicated and equally responsible. 
These one hundred and eighty-two signers included a 
majority of the leading business men of the city, and 
their conduct was generally approved by the citizens 
who had not joined their organization. Nobody doubt- 
ed the guilt of Jenkins, the inefficiency of the courts, 
or the intention of the committee to exercise its power 
with prudence and decision. They made no secret 
that they had violated the law, and were leagued to- 
gether to violate the law in the future, but they were 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 175 

faithful servants of the cause of justice, for whose sake 
they assumed very serious personal responsibilities. 
When they made a public avowal of their participation 
in the execution of Jenkins, they could not know what 
the future had in store for them. At the same time 
that they protested against any attempt to single out 
a few of their number for prosecution or odium, they 
published an address stating that they were convinced 
of the presence of a band of robbers and incendiaries 
in the city, that the criminals arrested by the police 
had escaped punishment, that the committee was ready 
to receive information about crime and criminals, that 
convicts then in the city should leave within five days, 
and that convicts arriving by sea should be forbidden 
to land. 

Sec. 87. Execution of Stuart, The committee soon 
found more work to do. James Stuart, a professional 
murderer and robber, for whom Thomas Burdue had 
been arrested by mistake in February and tried, fell 
into their hands in July, and on the eleventh of that 
month was tried. He complained during the progress 
of the trial that the proceedings were "tiresome," 
asked for a chew of tobacco, and confessed that he 
had committed a multitude of capital crimes. The 
evidence was conclusive, the verdict guilty, and the 
sentence hanging on the same day. He was left two 
hours with a clergyman, and then marched down to 
the end of Market street wharf, where a framework, 
built to support a pulley used in hoisting freight in 
and out of vessels, served for the execution. 



176 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCICCO. 

A grand jury of the county soon afterwards made 
a report containing the following justification of the 
course of the committee : 

When we recall the delays, and the inefficient, and we believe 
that with truth it may be said, the corrupt, administration of 
the law, the incapacity and indifference of those who are its 
sworn guardians and ministers, the frequent and unnecessary 
postponement of important trials in the district court, the disre- 
gard of duty and impatience while attending to perform it man- 
ifested by some of our judges having criminal jurisdiction, the 
many notorious villains who have gone unwhipped of justice, 
lead us to believe that the members of the association have been 
governed by a feeling of opposition to the manner in which the 
law has been administered and those who have administered it, 
rather than a determination to disregard the law itself. * * 
The grand jurors, believing, whilst they deplore their acts, that 
the association styling themselves "the vigilance committee," 
at a great personal sacrifice to themselves, have been influenced 
in their actions by no personal or private malice, but for the 
best interest of the whole, and at a time, too, when all other 
means of preventing crime and bringing criminals to direct pun- 
ishment had failed, here dismiss the matter. 

Sec. 88. Whittaker and McKenzie. Soon after the 
execution of Stuart, the committee arrested Samuel 
Whittaker and Robert McKenzie, who, on the twen- 
ty-first of August, before dawn, were taken from the 
rooms of the committee by the sheriff, under a w T rit of 
habeas corpus, issued on petition of Governor Mc- 
Dougal. At half-past two, p. m., on Sunday, August 
24, twenty-nine members of the committee went to 
the county jail, overawed the jailors, took the two 
prisoners to the rooms of the committee on Battery 
street between Pine and California, and there, amidst 






THE GOLDEN ERA. 177 

a vast concourse of people summoned by the tap of 
the fire-alarm bell, hanged them. This was the last 
public act of that committee. It never dissolved for- 
mally, but it ceased to hold its meetings. No judicial 
proceedings Avere ever taken against its members on 
behalf of the state, but several suits for damages 
were instituted by those whom the committee had 
treated as suspicious characters. 

After Burdue had been released by the committee, 
he was arrested by the police as James Stuart, to 
whom he bore a resemblance so close that their famil- 
iar acquaintances could not readily see any difference. 
A criminal court found him guilty of robbery and 
afterwards of murder, and he would doubtless have 
been hanged (the judicial tribunal made a mistake 
which the mob of February 22 avoided), had not the 
right man been caught in time. One of the vigilan- 
tes took the proper steps to secure the release of 
Burdue, who was thrice saved from unmerited punish- 
ment by the influence of the committee. It thus 
protected the innocent as well as punished the guilty. 

The committee ordered many professional criminals 
to leave, and having obtained a list of vessels which 
had carried convicts from England to Australia, with 
the names of the passengers on each, sent a commit- 
tee on board of every vessel from that country so soon 
as she entered the harbor, and made inquiry about the 
time when, and conveyance by which, every native of 
Great Britain had reached the colony; and if it ap- 
peared that he or she had been transported for crime, 



178 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

permission to land was denied, and the passage-money 
for the return was paid. The precise number of Aus- 
tralian convicts exiled and ordered to return before 
landing was never reported, but probably exceeded 
fifty. ' 

Sec. 89. Land Commission. Congress passed the 
act to settle the land titles in California in March, 
1851, providing a special tribunal or board of commis- 
sioners with authority to examine all claims made to 
land under grant under Mexico, and confirm all valid 
grants. The act made no reference to the promise 
given by Commodore Sloat in his proclamation issued 
on the seventh of July, 1846, when in taking posses- 
sion of the country on behalf of the American govern- 
ment, he declared that thenceforth California would 
be a portion of the United States; and as an induce- 
ment for accepting cordially, or at least peaceably, the 
change, he assured the people that " all persons hold- 
ing titles to real estate, or in quiet possession of land 
under color of right, shall have those titles guaranteed 
to them." This lanefuaore was doubtless used under 
express instruction from the cabinet; we know that 
Commodore Sloat had been ordered in 1845, to seize 
California at the first outbreak of hostilities, and we 
may presume that directions were given to him in re- 
gard to what he should say when he made the seizure. 
" Color of right " is a phrase common in American 
jurisprudence, and would not have been adopted ex- 
cept under the suggestion of a lawyer. Even if Sloat 
exceeded the authority conferred by his instructions, 






THE GOLDEN ERA. 179 

that fact could not be known to the native Californians, 
and they were justified in believing that he had full 
power to make the promise, which thus became a sol- 
emn contract under the law of nations with every one 
who submitted to the American authority. 

The phrase " quiet possession of land, under color of 
right," means any possession authorized by the law; 
or any possession that is not a wrong to the govern- 
ment or some individual. A tenancy at will — the 
weakest of all lawful tenures — which may be termi- 
nated by the owner at any moment and Avithout notice 
or condition, is a tenure under color of right. By 
Sloat's promise, the government was bound in honor 
and law to confirm the titles of all the Californians 
who had taken possession of ranchos with permission 
of the local authorities, and had petitioned the govern- 
ment for grants. They held " under color of right." 
They were entitled to the confirmation of their titles, 
after an examination as brief and simple as the circum- 
stances would permit, and with as little expense as 
possible to the claimants. The government should 
have made a list of all ranchos, the possession of which 
was matter of common notoriety, and mentioned in the 
archives; should have confirmed them summarily, then 
surveyed them and issued patents for them. The 
claims which were not mentioned in the archives or 
had not been reduced to possession, might properly 
have been subjected to a careful judicial inquiry. 
Above all things, it was important, in a country that 
changed so rapidly as California did after the treaty of 



180 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

cession, that the action should be prompt. To leave 
the land titles in doubt was to deprive the people of 
their property. 

These plain principles of justice and reason were 
utterly disregarded by congress and the politicians. 
No provision was made for confirming claims held 
under mere color of right ; those which had been held 
in notorious possession for generations, as well as 
those of the most suspicious character, were alike 
subjected to a hostile, costly and tedious investiga- 
tion, a large part of the cost being thrown upon the 
owners. 

The Mexican land system was entirely different 
from that of the United States. The Californian 
ranchos were granted not by the acre, but by the 
square league. There were no surveys, seldom any 
precise boundaries. It was sufficient in the descrip- 
tion of a rancho to say that it was a tract of ten 
square leagues, including a certain place, or that it 
was a small valley, or that it extended from one range 
of hills to another. The change from that system to 
the new one should have been made at the expense 
of the new government, not of the claimants, and 
especially not at a time when the government denied 
their title. The native Californians suddenly sur- 
rounded by a strange population, strange laws, a 
strange language, strange customs, and strange in- 
dustries, were virtually deprived of the bulk of their 
wealth, and then compelled to raise money to defend 
themselves against complete spoliation by the gov- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 181 

ernment. They had to go to San Francisco, where 
all the cases were tried (though some witnesses were 
heard at Los Angeles) take their witnesses with them, 
and employ lawyers who in many cases measured 
their fees by thousands of dollars or thousands of 
acres. 

Nor did the trouble and expense thus imposed upon 
the land owner come to an end when he had gained 
his case in the land commission. As the boundaries 
as well as the titles were in doubt, the Americans, 
who wanted to buy farms for the purposes of making 
permanent homes, were afraid to pay for deeds in 
which they could place no confidence. Under com- 
pulsion, it may be said, they became squatters, that 
is they seized and occupied, as their own, land claimed 
under Mexican grant. Having once made their set- 
tlement, they acquired interests which they defended 
in the courts. If they could defeat the Mexican 
grants they would acquire the land for a trifle. They 
were numerous, and became a political power. The 
governor, the legislature, the courts, the federal sen- 
ators, the congressmen, and the federal attorneys, who 
managed the suits against the Mexican grants, 
courted them. Squatterism tainted legislation and 
jurisprudence. Senator Gwin went so far in sub- 
serviency to it that he introduced a bill providing 
that if the courts should finally confirm any Mexican 
grant, including land occupied before March 3, 1851, 
by a squatter, the latter should hold the property and 
the lawful owmer.mi^ht take the same amount of land 



182 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

elsewhere, perhaps in some remote place. The federal 
attorney, instead of striving to do justice, made e very- 
effort to defeat and delay the confirmation of hundreds 
of claims since recognized as valid, appealed them 
first to the United States district court, and from 
there to the United States supreme court, making 
three trials on the title, and as many on the bound- 
aries, and each at great expense to the owners. 
There were squatter governors, squatter legislatures, 
and a squatter press. An act was passed in 1856 to 
provide that all lands should be deemed public till 
the legal title had passed from the government to 
private parties (Mexican grants were declared not 
legal titles till finally confirmed); that actual and 
peaceable possession should be presumptive proof of 
the right of possession; and that in ejectment suits, 
if the verdict were against the defendant, the jury 
should appraise the value of the improvements put 
upon the land by the defendant, and the value of the 
land without the improvements; and the plaintiff 
could get the land by paying for the improvements, 
or take the money-price fixed upon the land. The 
juries were impaneled by squatter sheriffs, and the 
appraisements were always in favor of the squatter 
defendants. The statute was declared unconstitu- 
tional, so that plundering trick was defeated. 

The general result was that the rancheros had to 
give on the average half of their land to get their 
titles confirmed, and then waited eight years before they 
could get out the patent. To obtain the means of 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 183 

living in the meantime, they had to sacrifice a consid- 
erable part of what was left to them by the lawyers 
and the courts. The Noe } Bernal, Sanchez, De Haro, 
Peralta, Moraga, Alvarado, Vasquez, Yallejo, Soto, 
Estudillo, and Castro families, which once owned lands 
now worth one hundred million dollars in and near 
San Francisco have entirely disappeared, or are re- 
duced to a few pitiful acres. But for all this injus- 
tice to the native Calif ornians~there was a compensation 
— the lawyers of San Francisco accumulated great 
wealth, and they and their grantees hold hundreds / 
of leagues of the most valuable land in the state. 

The land commission opened its sessions in San Fran- 
cisco on the second January, 1852, and received claims 
till the third of March, 1853, the total number being 
eight hundred and twelve. The filing of some of the 
petitions relating to lands in or near to San Francisco, 
made a lively sensation in the city. Among these 
the most notable were those of Limantour, Santillan, 
and Sherreback, who laid claim to nearly everything 
worth having south of California street. 

Sec. 90. 1852. The gold shipment of 1852, as 
recorded in the custom-house books, was forty- six 
million dollars, and the number of immigrants by sea 
sixty-seven thousand; both figures showing a large 
increase over those of former years. According to a 
state census taken in June, California had a total pop- 
ulation of two hundred and fifty-five thousand one 
hundred and twenty-two, including thirty-six thou- 
sand one hundred and fifty-four in San Francisco, or 



184 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

about one seventh of the inhabitants of the state. 
The federal commission appointed to settle private 
land claims began its sessions, and made a very large 
and very profitable business for lawyers. The city 
council, acting jointly with the supervisors represent- 
ing the county, bought the Jenny Lind theater for a 
city hall and court house, paying two hundred thou- 
sand dollars for it (twice as much as it was worth), or 
rather promising to pay, for, in those times, the city 
debtors received scrip in payment, and the council, 
relying on the paper-mill for funds, was not troubled 
by any anxiety to make both ends meet. One public 
creditor, Dr. Peter Smith, who had maintained a hos- 
pital for the indigent sick of the city in 1850, having 
demanded payment of his dues in vain, (and nobody 
denied the debt), obtained judgment, and the council, 
instead of paying him, allowed him to sell a large 
area of land claimed by the city at sheriff's sale. It 
went for a mere trifle, because prominent officials de- 
clared that purchasers would get no title. The Peter 
Smith sales were sustained by the courts for much of 
the land, and the city was despoiled. 

The " Herald's" insinuations of fraud in the pur- 
chase of the Jenny Lind theater provoked Alderman 
Cotter so much that he challenged John Nugent, its 
editor, and healed the official honor by breaking a 
journalistic arm. Edward Gilbert, editor of the 
" Alta," was killed by J. W. Denver, for ridiculing 
Governor Bigler, under whose appointment Denver 
held an office. Yerba Buena cemetery was opened 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 185 

for general use, and the removal to it of the remains 
in the cemetery near North Beach was commenced. 
Paousset went to Sonora with his first expedition of J 
Frenchmen. The streets were lighted for the first 
time with city lamps, oil burners, of which there were 
ninety. A station for signaling vessels was erected 
on a hill near Point Lobos, and the signals repeated 
at Telegraph Hill, gave information of the arrival of 
ships when they were fifteen miles or more from the 
Golden Gate. v 

Sec. 91. French Immigration. Some Frenchmen 
who had been scattered over the Pacific islands and 
Spanish- America arrived in California with the first 
rush of adventurers in 1848, and their letters encour- 
aged their countrymen to come to the gold mines. 
Facilities for migration were offered by the frequent 
departure of vessels from Bordeaux with wines, bran- 
dies, sardines, olive-oil, sauces, canned meats, bottled 
fruits, and various other French products that found a 
ready sale in the diggings. In 1850, the Parisian 
"lottery of the golden ingot," in which a bar of gold 
was the chief bait, offered many passages to Califor- 
nia among its prizes, and in 1851 about five hundred 
French men and women, most of them nearly penni- 
less, were transported to San Francisco by their suc- 
cessful tickets. The advertisements of the lottery, 
and the articles about it in the newspapers, caused a 
gold fever in Paris, such as did not prevail in any 
other part of Europe, and the " ingots," as the lottery 
immigrants were called in France, instead of finding 



186 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

themselves the majority of the adventurers from their 
country, were outnumbered by others, so that the 
French became one of the prominent features of the 
population of California; and even now, after a con- 
tinuous decrease of the French residents for nearly a 
quarter of a century, San Francisco has yet relatively 
more Frenchmen than any other city in the Union 
save New Orleans. 

They were at a great disadvantage as compared 
with the British, Irish, Germans and Scandinavians, 
because as a class they did not learn English, and 
they would not be naturalized. Most of them went 
to the mines, but in several of the camps where they 
were most numerous they were attacked by bands of 
ruffians and robbed of their claims, the dema^osfue of- 
fice-holders refusing to protect men who had no votes. 

The expulsion of the French miners from many of 
their claims was most unfortunate for California, since 
if they had been protected and encouraged, the im- 
miof ration from France would have been larofe and 
continuous, giving to the country a class of people 
who would have been of great value to its agriculture 
and commerce, as well as to its mining. Those who 
came contributed not a little to the industry of San 
Francisco, where most of them collected after the 
outbreaks at the diggings. Few of them knew any 
mechanical trade at which they could earn much 
money, and on account of their ignorance of English 
they were excluded from occupations which they 
could otherwise have pursued with profit. Sev- 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 187 

eral thousand of them were dissatisfied, and though 
generally peaceable, they offered excellent material 
for some desperate enterprise. 

Sec. 92. Raousset. Gaston de Raousset Boulbon, 
a count by birth, a native of Provence, thirty-five 
years of age, thought he could give them congenial 
employment that would accrue to his own honor and 
to the benefit of his country. He knew the sting of 
disappointed ambition. Notwithstanding his noble 
title, excellent education and superior talents, after 
coming to California almost penniless, he had been in 
the mines, then fisherman, hunter, stevedore and 
shoveller of sand, and had not, in any capacity, ob- 
tained more than a scanty compensation. He thought 
Sonora was a field suitable for himself and his adven- 
turous countrymen in California. Here they were 
subordinate and powerless; there they might obtain 
dominion. It was supposed and confidently asserted 
that the basin of the Gila was as rich in gold as the 
western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and it was known 
there were, besides, many silver mines fully opened, 
and wanting nothing but the expulsion of the Apaches 
to enable the Mexicans to render them productive 
within a few months. 

He spoke to his friends of organizing a party of 
Frenchmen to settle in Sonora, and they encouraged 
him. In the latter part of 1851 he went to Mexico, 
where he was received with much favor by Levasseur^ 
French minister, under whose counsel a company called 
the restauradora, or restorer, was organized, to occupy 



188 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and work the mines of Arizona. President Arista 
approved the plan of the company, promised to assist 
it, and advised capitalists to take stock in it. Many 
of the mines to be occupied were well known by name 
and reputation, but they had long been abandoned. 
The fame of the richness of these mines, the opinion 
that Sonora exceeded all other portions of Mexico in 
its mineral wealth, the promise of governmental pro- 
tection, and the advice of the French minister induced 
the banking house of Jecker, Torre & Co., which had 
French sympathies, to contribute a large part of the 
funds needed for the undertaking. 

With this aid Raousset returned to San Francisco, 
and found no difficulty in gathering followers. He 
was required by his contract with the government to 
take at least one hundred and fifty armed Frenchmen 
to Sonora but he took two hundred and fifty, landing 
at Guaymas on the tenth of June. Instead, however, 
of being welcomed with open arms by the local author- 
ities, as he expected, there was a feeling of ill-con- 
cealed hostility. Soon after he left the capital, intrigue 
had been commenced to prejudice the administration 
and the people against him. The English feared the 
dominance of French political influence, and the con- 
trol of the treasure shipments and foreign commerce 
of Mexico by French merchants. Some Mexicans 
were afraid the French would repeat in Sonora the 
game which the Americans had played in Texas. 
Assertions were made that Raousset had told his 
friends that he intended to establish a colony that 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 189 

would be of more value to France, and that would at- 
tract more French settlers than Algeria. If the pn 
ident, Arista, was not convinced, he at least became 
apprehensive, and authorized a company, headed by 
the wealthy British banking house of Barron, Forbes 
& Co., to take the same mines which had been previ- 
ously set apart for the French company. 

Sec. 93. Fighting in Sonora. General Blanco, 
Governor of Sonora, doubtless followed instructions 
from the capital when he refused to fulfil the condi- 
tions of the French contract, but he acted as if he 
had a personal grievance, and as if the entrance of 
anybody into his state with an independent command 
was an insult to himself. He was mean as well as 
hostile. He attempted to get the French commander 
away from his men, and finding that he could not suc- 
ceed by that kind of treachery, he sent word on the 
twenty-eighth of August, when Baousset was at 
Saric, near the northern frontier, that the Frenchmen 
must enter the Mexican army, take out letters of se- 
curity as aliens without the right of owning any mine 
or real estate, or reduce their military organization to 
fifty men under a Mexican commandant. All these 
demands were submitted to the adventurers in mass 
meeting, and were instantaneously, indignantly and 
finally rejected, with the declaration that they would 
fight to the last rather than submit to any one of 
them. So soon as the governor of Sonora learned 
their reply, he sent word to the local authorities near 
Saric that the French were not to be recognized as the 
owners or lawful occupants of any mines. 



190 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

On the sixth of October, Raousset, seeing that 
nothing could be done where he was, started for the 
capital of the state, determined to see what could be 
done there. If he had submitted without protest to 
the gross insults offered, and pecuniary wrongs done 
by the Mexican officials, he could have left the coun- 
try in peace, but neither he nor his men felt like sac- 
rificing a point of honor, as well as of business inter- 
est, for the sake of avoiding danger, so they marched 
gallantly and gaily to the chief city of the state, 
stopping for several days at Magdalena to enjoy the 
amusement of a religious festival and a large popular 
gathering. They were a jolly set of fellows, and 
made friends with the common people there and at 
all other places where they stopped. 

They entered Hermosillo on the morning of the 
fourteenth of October, driving out Governor Blanco 
and his twelve hundred soldiers, who had a defensive 
position selected in advance, the shelter of thick adobe 
walls, and all the advantages of fighting among their 
own people. Blanco had a narrow escape from cap- 
ture. Raousset was now in possession of the chief 
city of Sonora, and he determined to hold the state 
with the assistance of those inhabitants friendly to 
him and hostile to the central government. He con- 
sulted several influential citizens, who promised to aid 
him, and they told him they would organize a general 
revolt. He depended upon them, and they did noth- 
ing — probably they never intended to do anything. 
Before he could discover their inefficiency or bad faith, 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 191 

dysentery, with which he had been troubled before, 
became severe, and reduced him to a helpless condi- 
tion. None of his subordinates was capable of lead- 
ing the party, and they could not maintain themselves 
where they were, so they marched to Guaymas, 
carrying their commander in a litter. Arrived at the 
port, they made a treaty with Blanco, he paying forty 
thousand dollars, and they leaving Sonora. They 
returned to San Francisco, where they learned that 
the news of the battle of Hermosillo had been re- 
garded throughout California as the conquest of 
Sonora, and thousands of Frenchmen would soon have 
gone to their aid. A party of six hundred men, well 
provided with arms, was ready to sail. 

Kaousset, who was not a party to the treaty, 
so soon as able to move, went from Guaymas to 
Mazatlan, and thence to San Francisco, where he 
was received with distinction, his men giving him 
high praise for courage, capacity, generosity, and 
considerate attention to their feelings and mate- 
rial wants, declared themselves ready to follow him 
aofain. All the dissatisfied Frenchmen in Califor- 
nia hoped that he would make another trial with 
better luck the next time. He was determined to 
make another effort; he had wrongs to avenge, he 
had convinced himself that a considerable party in 
Sonora would favor independence, and he believed 
that, with his reputation, all that was necessary for 
success was a good start. 

He was encouraged by Dillon, French consul in 



192 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

San Francisco, and affairs in Mexico turned in his 
favor. President Arista was dethroned in January, 
1853, by Ceballos, he by Lombardini in February, 
and he by Santa Anna in April. In June, under an 
invitation from Levasseur, Haousset went to Mexico, 
where Santa Anna received him with favor, promised 
to compensate him for the injustice done by Arista, 
and made a contract with him for the introduction of 
a company of five hundred armed Frenchmen into 
Sonora. They were to receive one hundred and 
eighteen thousand dollars a month as regular pay, 
besides fifty thousand dollars in advance, for trans- 
portation and equipment. The contract was written 
out, approved by the council, signed by Santa Anna, 
and then annulled by him. To pacify the ambitious 
Frenchman, he offered him the command of a regi- 
ment in the Mexican army, but Raousset refused, 
and wrote a note to the president stating that he had 
come not so much for his own gain as to get justice 
for the Frenchmen who had been defrauded by the 
Mexican government, and hinted plainly that Mexi- 
cans are liars. He returned to San Francisco to find 
that in the meantime a filibustering party of Ameri- 
cans under Walker had left San Francisco to seize 
Sonora. If they should get hold of the prize for 
which he had been scheming, there would be no 
chance there for France. He could not afford to waste 
any time. 

Sec. 94. Obstacles. Raousset and his poorer friends 
had before vainly appealed repeatedly to all the French 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 193 

capitalists of San Francisco for aid in seizing Sonora 
for France, but now three houses came forward and 
subscribed three hundred thousand dollars, enough to 
arm and transport one thousand five hundred men and 
maintain them till they could get control of the rev- 
enues of Sonora. Before any of the money thus sub- 
scribed was paid, a report was published that the 
American government had bought Sonora, and though 
not generally credited, there was good reason to be- 
lieve that the Washington cabinet was negotiating for 
the cession of at least part of Sonora. The capitalists 
would advance no money under these circumstances. 

"While matters were in this position, Santa Anna, 
frightened by the proceedings of Walker, and consid- 
ering the French the only secure protection against 
the American filibusters, instructed Del Valle, the 
Mexican consul at San Francisco, to send three thou- 
sand Frenchmen to settle as a military colony in So- 
nora. This order filled Baousset with ecstacy. The 
Mexican government, at its own expense, was provid- 
ing for him far more than he demanded for his tri- 
umphs. He told his men to go, and in a few days 
eight hundred had applied to Del Valle and had been 
accepted. But the friends of the filibusters were not 
indifferent to this danger. They saw that if these 
Frenchmen should get secure foothold in Sonora, no 
room would be left there for Walker, slavery or an- 
nexation. The federal attorney in San Francisco had 
Del Valle and Dillon arrested, and the " Challenge " 
seized for violating the neutrality laws of the United 

13 



194 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

States. There was much doubt whether those laws 
had been violated, but there was no doubt that the 
charge must be made if the Frenchmen were to be 
headed off. It succeeded. The " Challenge " sailed 
on the twentieth of April with three hundred col- 
onists, but many of them were men whom Raousset 
would not have taken, and few others followed. The 
delay gave time to Santa Anna to see that there was 
no serious danger in Walker, and to recover from his 
scare. He felt grateful to the American authorities 
for protecting him against the three thousand French- 
men. Raousset was in despair. The American offi- 
cials would permit no emigration of French military 
colonists, and there was no other way of getting the 
force needed to establish French authority in Sonora. 
Louis Napoleon, though solicited for aid, had refused. 
If a great conquest was to be made for France, it must 
be made by the three hundred who went in the 
" Challenge." Some of them had gone at Raousset's 
request, and with the assurance that he would follow, 
so he determined to go. He saw that in all proba- 
bility the venture would be fatal to him, but there 
was a remote possibility of conquering for France not 
Sonora alone but all Mexico, and with that purpose 
distinctly avowed to a few friends he left San Fran- 
cisco, in a sloop of ten tons, on the night of May 
twenty-fourth. He made his departure in the dark- 
ness to avoid arrest, for he had been informed that a 
warrant had been issued against him for violating the 
neutrality laws. 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 195 

Sec. 95. End of Raousset. It was his plan to 
land in secret, join the " Challenge " party, seize Guay- 
rnas or some other sea-port town and wait for reinforce- 
ments from San Francisco, or a revolution in his 
favor in the interior. His arrival was announced be- 
fore he landed, so Gen. Yanez in command at Guay- 
mas, where the "Challenge" party had remained, could 
not be taken by surprise. Raousset went ashore and 
was received politely. The Mexicans anticipated 
trouble. When the French went out into the streets 
they were assailed by the populace. Yanez had a 
reoiment of Mexican soldiers, and on the morning of 
the thirteenth of July more troops arrived from the 
interior, raising his force to twelve hundred men, and 
it was reported that eighteen thousand were to arrive 
the next day. The French would not wait to be 
attacked. They went to the house where Raousset 
was, called on him to lead them. He refused to take 
command, but joined them in a disastrous attempt to 
storm the Mexican barracks. After a hundred had 
fallen, the remainder surrendered, under a promise by 
the French consul on behalf of the Mexican authori- 
ties that the lives of all should be spared. The con- 
ditions first offered to the French included life to all 
save Raousset, if they would lay down their arms, 
but they refused, and then the exception was with- 
drawn. Notwithstanding this explicit promise, Raous- 
set was shot on the twelfth of August, dying with 
free hands, open eyes, and a firm countenance. Of 
these we are told by witnesses of his execution; and 



196 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

that his heart was gay we learn from his letters writ- 
ten on the night before his execution. As one of his 
biographers says, "he was a Cortez slain at the begin- 
ning of his enterprise." He had the material but not 
the opportunity for a great conqueror. If he had re- 
ceived a little assistance from Louis Napoleon he 
might and probably would have done far more for 
France in Mexico than Maximilian did ten years 
later. His death was the end of the scheming among 
the Frenchmen of San Francisco for the conquest of 
Sonora. 

Sec. 96. 1853. In 1853, the gold exportation 
culminated at fifty-five millions, as officially reported, 
though the yield of the placers had probably reached 
its highest point in the previous year. Mining being 
the chief industry, and the one upon which all others 
depended, everything was affected by its decline, 
which, however, was not generally understood or 
discovered by merchants and bankers in San Fran- 
cisco till the close of the year, and even then many of 
them were not fully convinced. There was a decrease 
in the rate of wages; and for the first time there was 
a large return migration to the Atlantic states, so 
that the gain of population by sea was only three 
thousand, or at least seventeen thousand less than in 
any of the previous four years. At the same time 
there was a great falling off in the immigration by 
land, and it did not again approach its previous mag- 
nitude until after the railroad had been completed. 

'The period within which Mexican land grants had 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 197 

to be filed in the land commission under penalty of con- 
fiscation of the title, expired in March, and as the spec- 
ulation in city land had been the source of much 
wealth, and was looked to for much more in the fu- 
ture, the citizens were not a little concerned to find 
that two claims had been filed for nearly everything 
south of California street, and a third one claimed 
eight hundred acres in the district south of Market 
and west of Second street. While the Limantour, 
Santillan and Sherreback claims covered three deep 
much of the best upland, the " Peter Smith men," as 
the purchasers at the sheriff's sale in the previous year 
were called, were trying to seize a strip six hundred 
feet wide outside of the permanent water front, by 
the help of the legislature, and Governor Bigler. In- 
tense indignation prevailed among the citizens against 
the proposed fraud, and after it had jmssed the assem- 
bly, it was defeated in the senate by the casting vote 
of Lieutenant Governor Purdy. Notwithstanding 
Bigler's efforts in favor of the extension bill, and his 
great unpopularity in San Francisco, he was renomi- 
nated under the influence of Broderick, who had ob- 
tained a predominant influence in the Democratic con- 
ventions of the city and state. The chivalry poli- 
ticians hated Broderick and Bigler, and many of them 
voted against the latter; so the former, as chairman of 
the state committee, published an address to the peo- 
ple, denouncing them as traitors to the party. 

The real estate prices, which had been rising rapidly 
since the fall of 1848, culminated in December, 1853, 



n! 



198 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

when two full blocks, known as the " city slip," be- 
tween Clay and Sacramento streets, east of Davis, 
were sold at public auction. This land was intersec- 
ted bv the wharf of Commercial street, and included 
lots then believed to be among the most valuable sites 
for business houses in the city. Montgomery, between 
Pacific and Pine, had now become the street of the 
most elegant stores; Stockton street and Pincon Hill 
had the most costly residences. 

The construction of the plank road on Folsoni 
street to the Mission, gave access to an extensive area 
previously, on account of the sand hills and swamps, 
inaccessible for wagons. Puss's garden, on the corner 
of Sixth and Harrison streets, became the first popu- 
lar suburban Sunday resort. The erection of a tele- 
graph line to Point Lobos, and the connection of the 
wires with the Merchants' Exchange, led to the aban- 
donment of Telegraph Hill as a station for signaling 
vessels. An electric telegraph brought the city into 
instantaneous communication with San Jose, Stockton, 
Sacramento and Marys ville. The Metropolitan thea- 
ter on the west side of Montgomery street, between 
Washington and Jackson, one of the largest and most 
elegant buildings of the kind in the United States, and 
the Union theater on Commercial street, above Kear- 
ny, offered opportunities for dramatic performances, in 
addition to the American theater on Sansome street, 
and the Adelphi, occupied by a French company, on 
the west side of Dupont, north of Clay. The First 
Unitarian church on Stockton street, between Clay 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 199 

and Sacramento, and the First Congregational church 
on the south-west corner of Dupont and California, 
were completed, and St. Mary's cathedral was com- 
menced on the corner diagonally opposite. These were 
three of the leading congregations of San Francisco at 
the time, and the situation of their buildings was in 
the vicinity of the fashionable residence district. 
Other notable events of this year were the sailing of 
Walker's expedition to conquer Sonora and Lower 
California, the foundation of the Mercantile Library, 
the adoption of a comprehensive system of grades, the 
erection of Montofomerv block, and the election of 
C. K. Garrison to the office of mayor. 

Sec. 97. City Slip Sale. In December the city 
council passed an ordinance to sell the city slip water- 
lots — they were covered by the bay, some of them to 
a depth of twenty-five feet at low tide — in the two 
blocks bounded by Clay, Sacramento, Davis and East 
streets. This slip had been set apart by ordinance for 
a public dock, but it was evident, after Commercial, 
Clay and Sacramento street wharves had been built 
out, that the place would soon fill up, and the project 
to sell was, therefore, a wise and proper one. The 
council consisted of two boards, each containing eight 
members, one for each ward. The ordinance to sell 
having received a majority in the board of aldermen, 
and four out of seven votes in the board of assistants 
(one member had resigned), was declared passed, and 
the property was sold on the twenty-sixth of Decem- 
ber, at public auction, the average price of the lots 



200 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

being nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-four 
dollars; the total, one million one hundred and ninety- 
three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. One 
fourth was to be paid down, one half in two months, 
and the remaining fourth in four months from the day 
of sale. The Sacramento street and Commercial street 
wharf companies threatened to enjoin the sale, on the 
ground that they had built their wharves on the faith 
of the ordinance setting off this property for a public 
dock, and the council, on the day of sale, passed an 
ordinance giving one hundred and eighty-five thousand 
dollars out of the proceeds to those companies as a 
compensation for the injury done to them. 

Sec. 98. Filibuster Walker. The expedition of 
Raousset with his Frenchmen to Sonora, in 1852, 
under a contract with the Mexican government, pro- 
voked much angry comment among the American 
slavery extensionists. They looked forward to the 
conquest of Mexico as a matter of manifest destiny, 
and the introduction of negro slavery there as a 
source of much wealth and political influence to the 
gulf states. The establishment of a large French 
population anywhere in the sister republic, and espe- 
cially near the border, was represented as the delib- 
erate planting of an obstacle in the path of the Union, 
and as an act of monarchical intervention in the af- 
fairs of the republican hemisphere. It was partly for 
the purpose of excluding Raousset from the southern 
half of the Gila basin, which was supposed to be the 
richest part of Sonora in mineral wealth, that in 1853 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 201 

a treaty was negotiated by the cabinet of Washington 
with Santa Anna for a region that now forms a con- 
siderable portion of Arizona. This treaty, however, 
left abundant room in Mexico for the ambitious French- 
man, and before anything was known of the negotia- 
tions for it, some of the slavery extensionists in San 
Francisco thought that the responsibility of defeating 
Eaousset's purposes rested upon them. The leading 
men among them, mostly lawyers from the slave 
states, had numerous consultations upon the subject, 
and they agreed, in the summer of 1853, that the 
proper remedy for the danger of a French occupation 
of Sonora was the conquest of the country by a fili- 
bustering expedition. 

William Walker, a native of Tennessee, then thir- 
ty-three years of age, who had been a lawyer and ed- 
itor in California, was selected as commander by the 
San Francisco conspirators. He was a ready writer 
and speaker, a man of moderate ability in every 
respect, but brave and willing to risk everything 
rather than live in obscurity. He imagined that he 
was destined to establish the dominion of the United 
States over Mexico and Central America, and misled 
by that fancy, spent years with small bands of ruf- 
fians in fighting and plundering the unfortunate Span- 
ish-Americans in those districts which he selected as 
the fields of his exploits. Money was subscribed, 
bonds of the new republic of Sonora and Lower Cal- 
ifornia were printed and sold, a flag was made, and 
meetings were held in the city hall, where the men 



202 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

considered desirable recruits for the expedition were 
brought together under injunctions of secrecy, ad- 
dressed upon the brilliant promise of the adventure, 
and enlisted. There was no difficulty in getting men; 
money enough was gathered to buy arms and charter 
the brig " Arrow;" but when she was nearly ready to 
sail, General Hitchcock, commander of the United 
States forces in California, seized her on a charge of 
violating the neutrality laws. This procedure gave 
great offense to the federal officials generally, most of 
them slavery extensionists, and the federal attorney 
ordered the release of the vessel, on the pretext that 
there was not " a scintilla of evidence " against her. 

General Hitchcock could do nothing in the matter 
without the support of the civil authorities, so he 
made no farther effort in that direction, more espe- 
cially as he found that he had not the approval of 
those whose influence was most potent with the fed- 
eral administration. Almost as soon as replies could 
be received from Washington, it was rumored that he 
would be degraded, and in the following February he 
was superseded by General Wool, who was required to 
transfer his headquarters from San Francisco to Be- 
nicia, so that if any further filibustering expeditions 
should be organized, they might leave without pass- 
ing under his nose. Jefferson Davis, then secretary 
of war, received credit from the friends of Walker for 
the excellence of his management. 

The seizure of the "Arrow" did not defeat the enter- 
prise nor long delay it. The arms and stores were 






THE GOLDEN ERA. 203 

transferred to the bark "Caroline," which sailed on 
the sixteenth of October with forty-six men, a small 
force to be used in conquering an empire as large as 
France, and inhabited by one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand people. But Walker had the promise that rein- 
forcements should be sent so soon as he had obtained 
a foothold. He landed at La Paz, the capital of 
Lower California, took possession of the town, and 
issued a proclamation declaring Lower California an 
independent republic, whereupon his followers elected 
him president, and he published a decree adopting the 
code of Louisiana as the law of the land. He and 
his chivalry friends in San Francisco wished to legal- 
ize slavery without mentioning it, and the adoption of 
the Louisiana code seemed to them the best method 
of attaining their ends. Beina- unable to maintain 
himself at La Paz, after a brief stay, he and his army 
of conquest set sail for Magdalena bay on the west 
coast of Lower California, and thence they moved in 
a few days to Muertos, a point on the coast about a 
dozen miles from the American boundary, whence in 
case of attack they could soon escape to friendly terri- 
tory, and whence they could conveniently send letters 
describing their victories over the enemy. These 
letters as given in the San Francisco papers excited 
an ardent desire among moneyless scamps to share 
the glories "of extending the area of freedom" over 
the bare mountains and cactus covered plains of north- 
western Mexico. The flag of the new republic was 
hoisted at the corner of Kearny and Commercial 



204 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

streets ; its bonds were exhibited in the shop-windows 
and sold openly; the money paid for them by the 
original purchasers being generally considered as so 
much thrown away; enlistments of filibusters were 
made without concealment, and. on the thirteenth of 
December the bark u Anita " sailed with about two 
hundred men. Their main reliance for provisions 
was the cattle of the country, taken without com- 
punction of conscience, and if the owners were not 
satisfied with the only pay offered by Walker's band, 
they were insulted, and in some cases beaten or even 
shot. Unable to contend on equal terms with the 
invaders, most of the Mexican rancheros in the vicin- 
ity fled with their families and cattle, and the filibus- 
ters were compelled to move sooner than they had 
intended, though they never expected to stay long at 
Muertos. 

Walker announced his intention of marching to 
Sonora, and issued a proclamation annexing that 
state to his dominion and announcing that the name 
of the nation was the Republic of Sonora. All this 
was done with the most solemn sincerity on his part, 
but the men ridiculed the procedure and had no in- 
tention of marching, without proper supplies, four 
hundred miles through a desolate country and then 
entering the settled districts of Sonora with less than 
three hundred men. They were desperate, but not 
insane. They did not object to danger, but they 
wanted some reasonable hope of compensation. They 
were willing to plunder the Mexicans, but the pros- 






THE GOLDEN ERA. 205 

pect of a long march through a desert, with the pos- 
sibility that just after crossing it they would be shot 
down like dogs, did not suit them. So most of them 
deserted, crossed the line, and became peaceful Amer- 
ican citizens again. Walker took a serious view of 
their desertion, regarding it as treason to his au- 
thority, and having caught some of the offenders, 
shot two and drummed two others out of camp after 
a severe flogging. He shortly afterwards started on 
his march with about one hundred men, but the 
Mexicans harassed them so much that there was no 
hope of saving the cattle on which they depended for 
food, and they were glad to reach the American ter- 
ritory and surrender themselves to federal officers 
who had been informed of their coming. They w T ere 
taken as prisoners to San Francisco, where President 
Walker, Vice-President Watkins and Secretary of 
State Emory were indicted for violating the neutral- 
ity laws. Watkins was convicted after a long trial, 
and fined fifteen hundred dollars; but as there was no 
alternative of imprisonment, and as he never paid the 
fine, there was no punishment. He might have saved 
some time for himself, and much needless trouble to 
the federal officials, by pleading guilty. Emory hav- 
ing seen that the vindication of the neutrality law 
was not a very grave matter, pleaded guilty, and 
was in like manner ordered to pay fifteen hundred 
dollars into the United States treasury, an order 
which he never condescended to obey. Walker him- 
self w T as acquitted, and his republic of Sonora and 



206 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Lower California disappeared from the records of the 
criminal courts and the chronological tables. 

Sec. 99. Six Years' Work. The period of nearly 
six years from the beginning of the gold excitement 
till the end of 1853, was marked by a steady and rapid 
increase in the production, or at least in the exportation 
of gold, and therefore called "The Golden Era," saw 
San Francisco rise suddenly from the condition of an 
insignificant village, almost unknown to commerce and 
geography, to that of one of the leading seaports, with 
a semi-monthly steam communication by way of Pan- 
ama with New York, and the illumination of the 
North Pacific ocean and its shores with the bright 
light of high civilization. The tents and shanties that 
made up a large part of the city for several years after 
the gold discovery, having been cleared away by the 
great fires, were succeeded by substantial brick build- 
ings, and a hundred acres of the bay were filled in to 
make room for more. Everything that was necessary 
for a metropolitan center of business — warehouses, 
wharves, banks, large stocks of merchandise, extensive 
relations with distant markets, and able newspapers, 
as well as the social wants of schools, theaters, libraries 
and churches — were supplied at short notice. 

California, like San Francisco, rose as if at one bound 
from the stagnation of semi-barbarous pastoral life to 
the varied arts and restless activity of a refined civ- 
ilization. Ail the energies were drawn to the mines 
and the means of supplying them. Agriculture and 
the agricultural districts were neglected. Although 



THE GOLDEN ERA. 207 

money was abundant and there was a great rush of 
people to the mineral regions, their apparent pros- 
perity was delusive. The miners generally lived in 
tents and rude cabins, without wives or female rela- 
tives, without permanence of residence or regularity of 
occupation. Deprived of the influences of home life, 
many became dissipated or extravagant and lost the 
disposition, if they ever had the capacity, to save their 
earnings. The government did. not permit them to 
acquire fee-simple titles to their claims, or even to 
farms in the vicinity, and having no opportunity to 
enrich the land they despoiled it. The more they 
made, the poorer it became. The wagon roads were 
bad, or were covered by heavy tolls; there were no 
railroads; and business generally was conducted on the 
hand-to-mouth principle as nearly as possible. Gam- 
bling was carried on publicly in all the towns, and the 
most costly champagnes and cigars were imported 
from France and Havana for men who supported 
themselves by the pick and shovel. In 1850, settle- 
ments had been made in nearly all the towns now ex- 
isting in the mining districts on the western slope of 
the Sierra Nevada between Mariposa and Orovillo; 
El Dorado was the most populous county in the state; 
Sacramento, Stockton and Marysville were the chief 
river ports where the miners got their supplies; and 
Petaluma, Vallejo, Napa, Santa Rosa, San Rafael, 
Martinez, Santa Clara, Redwood, and Eureka on Hum- 
boldt bay, were centers of business in the coast region. 



208 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 

Section 100. 1854. The flush times of 1853 were fol- 
lowed by a serious depression in the next year. There 
was a decline of four million dollars in the gold export- 
ation, a decrease of one fourth in the tonnage of the 
vessels entering the port, and a still greater decrease in 
the prices of real estate. A fever for erecting fire-proof 
brick buildings had followed the great conflagration of 
1851 and had outrun the demand, and now hundreds 
of the business houses were vacant. The increase of 
agricultural production* in the state had greatly reduced 
the demand for imports; and having supplied nothing 
of note for exportation, it cut off much of the traffic of 
resident merchants, as well as of foreign shipowners. 
Mr. Broderick attempted to take advantage of the state 
by getting himself elected to the federal senate a year 
in advance of the proper time, but failed, and the people 
gave an overwhelming majority at the September elec- 
tion to his opponents, the chivalry candidates. The 
gas works went into operation and furnished light for 
the streets in February. Omnibuses began to run be- 
tween North Beach and South Park at intervals of half 
an hour. The owners of the steamboats plying on the 
inland waters tributary to the Golden Gate, combined 
in the California Steam Navigation Company, which for 
fifteen years afterwards had control of the passenger and 
freight traffic between San Francisco and the chief in- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 209 

land ports. The Hoadley grades were modified, sav- 
ing about one hundred feet on the top of Telegraph Hill, 
which Hoadley had proposed to cut down so much. 
Portsmouth square, previously open, uneven and filthy, 
was graded, supplied with an iron fence, and planted 
with grass, ornamental trees and shrubs. In October, 
Henry Meiggs failed for eight hundred thousand dollars, 
and lied to Chile, after issuing forged city warrants, 
forged promissory notes and fraudulent shares in a lum- 
ber company to the amount of two hundred thousand 
dollars or more. Paving with cobble stones, as prefer- 
able to planking, was introduced in those blocks where 
land was most valuable, and among the streets thus 
improved were Montgomery between California and 
Washington, and Washington between Montgomery and 
Dupont, Powell street was graded from Clay to North 
Beach. Pacific was graded between Montgomery and 
Sansome, by a deep cut through rock. A road to North 
Beach was opened along the eastern base of Telegraph 
Hill. Meiggs' wharf was built, and Lone Mountain 
cemetery was opened, superseding Yerba Buena cemetery 
for general use. 

Sec. 101. Dillon and Del Valle. The arrest of Del 
Yalle, Mexican consul in San Francisco, as principal, 
and of Dillon. French consul, as accomplice in the vio- 
lation of the neutrality laws of the United States, by en- 
listing Frenchmen to serve in the Mexican army, was 
followed by trials which excited great interest at the 
time. The testimony showed that the men were en- 
gaged as colonists, not as soldiers; but it was understood 

14 



210 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

they might be required to serve in the Mexican army, 
especially if the American filibusters should become 
troublesome, and the jury, perhaps influenced by the 
feeling prevalent in the community, that the French 
should not be permitted to put any obstacle in the way 
of the march of American annexation, found Del Yalle 
guilty. In the case of Dillon the jury disagreed. Del 
Yalle was never sentenced, and the American govern- 
ment apologized to Mr. Dillon for having arrested him 
illegally for refusing to appear as a witness in the Del 
Yalle case. Before the trials were ended, Raousset had 
been executed, and all fears of a French occupation of 
Sonora had been dissipated. 

Sec. 102. Mercantile Business. The business of the 
merchant in San Francisco for years after the gold dis- 
covery was exposed to frequent and violent fluctuations, 
which could not be avoided by any experience or pru- 
dence. The city was the sole port of the only large and 
highly civilized community on the north Pacific. It 
was far from the other notable seaports in the same ocean, 
and as a market for imports was nearly equal to all the 
others together. No other Pacific port could exercise 
much influence by relieving the extremes of demand or 
supply at San Francisco ; none could furnish the articles 
most needed by the miners. Oregon had only thirteen 
thousand inhabitants in 1850, and most of them were 
new settlers and busy in opening farms, so that they had 
little to export. Mexico had nothing to sell save silver ; 
Asia nothing that California wanted save rice and sugar ; 
Australia and Chile little save flour, and that was not to 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 211 

be had regularly in large supply. The north Atlantic 
was the source from which nearly everything was brought. 

The distance from New York to San Francisco by the 
sailing route was nineteen thousand miles, and the time 
four months and a half, though the trip was repeatedly 
made in three months. All the freight before the open- 
ing of the Panama railroad, in 1855, came by way of 
Cape Horn. Letters by the isthmus required nearly a 
month ; and after the receipt at New York of an order 
for merchandise to be sent to California, two or three 
weeks usually elapsed before a ship willing to take addi- 
tional freight would sail. Thus, between the date of the 
order sent from San Francisco and that of the final de- 
livery of the merchandise, there was an interval of six 
months, and there might be great fluctuations in that 
time. The merchant had to take the chances that the 
market would be overstocked or exhausted. He could 
not learn precisely what had been ordered by others, for 
the manifests sent out by mail and published after the 
departure of each ship from New York with a cargo for 
California, classed many articles as sundries, and often 
gave the number of packages without weight or size, so 
that when the article shipped was known, there was no 
clear indication of the quantity. 

For many reasons it was not possible to keep large 
stocks on hand. The rate of interest in 1849 was ten 
per cent, per month, so that it was better to sell an 
article immediately after receipt for one dollar and loan 
the money than to keep it a year and then sell for 
two dollars. Such warehouses as there were, were not 



212 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

secure against fire. Merchandise could be put in store- 
ships, but the storage was from two to ten dollars a 
month per ton, and the lighterage, or transfer from the 
ship to the shore, was three or four dollars per ton. 
The merchants were newcomers, many of them inexpe- 
rienced in the business, or men under thirty, so that they 
could not have long-established reputations. All the 
houses were highly combustible and liable to be swept 
away at two hours' notice by a conflagration, and the 
land-titles were defective, thus leaving the people without 
such basis for credit in their real estate as every com- 
munity should have for high prosperity. The popula- 
tion was migratory, and sudden reverses of fortune were 
frequent. If there was not enough of an article, it would 
go up ten, a hundred, even three hundred-fold: if there 
was an overstock it might go down to nothing. The 
arrival of one ship often changed the condition from 
scarcity to glut, and made or marred several fortunes. 
Lumber was worth four hundred dollars a thousand 
feet in the fall of 1849, twelve times the present price, 
and in the spring of 1850 it w r ould not sell for enough to 
pay freight. Tobacco, which had commanded two dollars 
per pound, had been imported so abundantly that in 
the winter of 1849 boxes of it were thrown into the mud 
as a substitute for stepping-stones, and other boxes of it 
were used to make a foundation of a wooden house on 
the eastern side of Montgomery street, near Jackson. 
Saleratus, which could be bought in New York for four 
cents a pound, ran up to twelve and fifteen dollars. The 
miners generally having no professional bakers, nor yeast, 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 213 

nor skill in baking, depended upon it to make their 
bread light, and would have paid twenty dollars a pound 
rather than go without. Dried apples fluctuated from 
five to seventy-live cents a pound ; whisky from forty 
cents to two dollars per gallon ; carpet-tacks, which sold 
for ten cents a paper in New York, sold here at one time 
for one dollar and twenty-five cents; common candles 
rose to one dollar and twenty-five cents a pound, and 
Xew York butter, after rising to eight}', fell to six cents. 

Apothecaries' scales, used in every business place 
for weighing gold dust, commanded high prices. Spring 
balances, worth three dollars a dozen in New York, sold 
for seventy-five dollars in San Francisco. Ueavy canvas 
was used extensively for tents; and the rough boarding 
on the inside of wooden houses — or if there were no 
boards, the studding — was hidden under white muslin, 
which was fastened with tacks, of which, as well as of 
the muslin, there was a large consumption. 

An example of the urgency with which things were 
wanted when the}-' were w T anted, was furnished by the 
keeper of a saloon who needed a large punch bowl in 
1 840, but could find none for sale. The nearest ap- 
proach to it was a soup tureen, and not being able to 
buy it separately, he took the whole dinner set to which 
it belonged, though he had no use for the other pieces. 
Another keeper of a liquor shop having failed to find 
any white sugar in the market, bought barrels of Chinese 
candy and had it ground fine, as preferable to brown 



In 1850 four firms made an agreement to take all the 



214 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

flour that should be delivered by a certain house from 
Chile within a limited period, the amount to be not less 
than one hundred thousand nor more than two hun- 
dred thousand barrels, at fourteen dollars per barrel. 
Each firm assumes a responsibility of seven hundred 
thousand dollars, and there was a forfeit of one hundred 
thousand dollars for a failure to comply with the con- 
tract. Soon after the flour began to arrive the purchasers 
thought they were secure of a vast profit, the market 
price being from twenty-live to thirty dollars per barrel. 
They had pocketed several hundred thousand dollars, 
and could have paid the one hundred thousand dollars 
forfeit, thrown up the contract, and had a nice surplus 
for themselves ; but they kept on taking the flour, which 
began to fall under the influence of the large importa- 
tions till it went down to ten dollars, and they lost all 
they had made and something more. 

Sec. 103. Staple Imports. As a result of the necessity 
of importing provisions, the diet of the miners was pe- 
culiar. The leading articles of food imported, such as 
would bear the voyage round Cape Horn (passing twice 
through the torrid zone) with least injury, and possessing 
the most nourishment in the least bulk, were flour, salt 
meat, salt fish, beans, hard bread, rice, dried apples, 
coffee and sugar. Even so late as 1853, six thousand 
tons of hard bread were imported in one year from New 
York. 

The San Francisco market was remarkable not less 
for its fluctuations than for its leading articles, which 
were different from those of any other city. Women 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 215 

were very rare in the mines, and the business dependent 
upon their patronage was scarcely worthy of mention. 
There was not much more demand for fine broadcloth 
than for ribbons and laces; but a large proportion of the 
articles which elsewhere every farm or neighborhood pro- 
duces for itself, and which therefore do not pay tribute 
to metropolitan merchants, were here imported. There 
were no farms, in or near the mines, producing fresh 
vegetables, fresh fruit, milk, butter, eggs, chickens and 
pigs ; no housewives making soap, candles, pickles, sweet- 
meats or clothing ; no flax or cotton was grown ; no sheep 
were shorn ; no cloth was woven ; no leather was tanned ; 
no clothes, shoes or hats were made; no pottery was 
burned; no iron was smelted. A little wheat was 
ground, scarcely enough to be taken into consideration. 
The Californians had to send to New York for their 
provisions, clothing, tools, cooking utensils, table furni- 
ture, and many of the articles needed in building their 
houses. Other communities imported only a few ar- 
ticles relatively, and those few of subordinate value in 
the ordinary business of life. Not so in California. If 
they had been deprived of what they obtained from 
abroad, the Californians could scarcely have lived for a 
day. 

Sec. 104. Commercial Panic. Early in 1854 a severe 
panic smote the mercantile business. The marvelous 
prosperity of the period from the beginning of 1851 till 
the middle of 1853 had led to overspeculation. Men 
supposed that the gold production, the imports, the value 
of real estate, the demand for storage, and the population 



216 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

would go on increasing at the same ratio as in the pre- 
vious two years ; and they made this supposition the basis 
of their calculations and contracts. They bought lots, 
built fire-proof houses, and ordered cargoes of merchan- 
dise from the east, and would have doubled their capital 
twice in a year, if their expectations of a continued in- 
crease in the yield of the mines and in the number of 
miners at the same rates as from 1849 to 1852 had been 
verified ; but the mining production had already culmin- 
ated in the winter of 1852-3, though the fact was not 
known or appreciated until several years later. The 
yield was probably larger in 1852 than in any other 
calendar year, though the exportation as officially report- 
ed was largest in 1853, when it reached fifty-seven mil- 
lions; the next year it fell to fifty-one, and in 1855 to 
forty-three. The decline was at first attributed to un- 
favorable seasons; to the lack of water in the diggings, 
and to the early floods that swept away the dams and 
flumes just when vast sums were about to be taken from 
the beds of the rivers. 

Whatever were the causes, the miners as a class felt 
the results. Many returned to the eastern states ; others 
removed to the valleys and sought employment on the 
farms; thousands of claims previously highly productive 
were abandoned; only thirty- three thousand immigrants 
came in 1853 by sea, though sixty-six thousand had 
come in the previous year; the decline in production 
frightened the people in the mines, and many of them 
undertook to be economical; consumption decreased, and 
the prices of merchandise and land, and the rates of in- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 217 

terest fell in San Francisco. The city had more stores 
and warehouses than she could use. Out of a thousand 
business houses in the middle of 1854 more than three 
hundred were unoccupied. Many of those who had 
bought large supplies of merchandise, or built costly 
fire-proof houses, failed in 1855, when they could bear 
up no longer. There were two hundred voluntary bank- 
rupts, with deficits of forty thousand dollars each, on the 
average, in a city that probably had not forty thousand 
inhabitants. 

Something of the decay of business in the city must 
be attributed to the growth of agriculture. Many of the 
immigrants of 1852 had gone to farming, and they were 
joined by thousands of miners in the next year, so that 
there was a large increase in the production of grain and 
vegetables, and a correspondent decline in the quantity of 
flour imported, in the number of ships needed, and 
in the profit of the consignees, warehousemen, jobbers, 
and draymen in the city. The value of certain kinds 
of provisions and grain imported was fourteen millions 
in 1853, only five in 1854, two the next year, and one 
in 1855. There was no compensating increase in the 
exports, exclusive of the precious metals. Quicksilver 
was more than one third in value of the exports between 
1854 and 1857, and there was not enough of it in a year 
to load one large clipper ship. The shipping entering 
the harbor fell from four hundred and seven thousand 
tons (not counting steamers which carried little freight, 
or coasters) in 1853, to one hundred and ninety-seven 
thousand in 1857. 



218 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 105. Meiggs. By superior knowledge of busi- 
ness, attention to it, capacity, tact and manners, Henry 
Meiggs became a prominent citizen of San Francisco in 
1850. With a prepossessing appearance and address, a 
kindly greeting for everybody, and a purse open for 
every public need and for every call of meritorious pri- 
vate charity, he was a general favorite. His decision 
upon bargains proposed to him was quick and clear. 
People had confidence in his judgment. His occupation 
in San Francisco was, as it had been in his native state, 
New York, that of buying and selling lumber. His 
place of business was at North Beach, where he built a 
little wharf and a planing and sawing mill. He also 
organized a company which erected in Mendocino county 
one of the largest and best sawmills in the state. 

Meeting every day with the people owning land at 
North Beach, listening to their predictions of the ad- 
vance of their part of the city, he adopted their ideas, 
became more sanguine than any of them, and satisfied 
himself that by speculation in lots there he could make 
millions. It was less than a mile from the business 
center of the city ; it was nearer the Golden Gate ; it 
had a larger area of level land ; it had a water front 
where ships could anchor securely, though the winds 
and waves w r ere higher than in Yerba Buena cove; it 
might be reached on a level road by a cut round the 
base of Telegraph Hill, and by Stockton street, over an 
elevation that did not exceed eighty-five feet in height; 
the titles of land were better than at any place south of 
California street, and the prices not one quarter of those 



THE GOLDEN EUA IN DECLINE. 219 

in the district south of Pacific and east of Stockton. 
The city must grow, and every circumstance indicated 
in Meiggs' opinion, that, by proper management, a large 
part of its most valuable growth might be turned to 
North Beach. The more he thought of it, the clearer it 
became to him. Millions had been made by the owners 
of water lots in Yerba Buena cove, and he imagined that 
he could make as much out of the lots in North Beach. 
They could be had cheap, so he bought extensively, per- 
suaded his friends to buy, built Meiggs' wharf two thou- 
sand feet long, and filled in some lots. 

Having done more than anybody else for the improve- 
ment of the northern end of the city, he became so popu- 
lar in that neighborhood that there was a general demand 
that he should represent it in the city council, and he 
took the place. The cemetery in the block bounded by 
Powell, Stockton, Lombard and Chestnut streets, was 
regarded as a drawback to the growth of that part of 
the city, and he obtained the passage of ordinances to 
close it, and to remove the bones of those who had been 
buried there to the new cemetery to be opened on the 
block now occupied by the new city hall. He graded 
part of Stockton street, and under his influence contracts 
were let for grading Powell street from Clay to North 
Beach, Francisco street through the northern end of 
Telegraph Hill, and several other streets along the north- 
ern and eastern sides of the hill, thus facilitating access 
to North Beach from the business centre of the city. 

Sec. 10G. Forged Warrants. But these improvements, 
the taxes and the street assessments, demanded more 



220 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

money than he could spare from his business. He had 
expected that his lots would now advance considerably 
in value, so that he could sell a few at a high profit, and 
obtain the means for going on with his plans; but the 
people could not be made to believe in North Beach, 
and besides, just at the time when he expected to sell — 
that is, in the spring of 1854 — there was a serious de- 
cline of real estate throughout the city. He was a 
bankrupt ; but that fact was his own secret, and he under- 
took to save himself by forgery, going into the business 
extensive^. The city was then doing business on trust, 
giving to her creditors warrants or municipal promissory 
notes, without interest, attested by the signatures of the 
mayor and controller. Those officials were engaged in 
private business, and did not guard the blank warrants 
with proper care. Meiggs, as an alderman and business 
man of high position, was a frequent visitor in their 
offices. He was attorney in fact for a contractor, who 
was entitled to a large number of warrants for street 
work, and while getting them, could see where and how 
the blank warrants were kept. The blanks were sup- 
plied to the controller in book form, and it is supposed 
that, for the convenience of the officials, the controller 
signed a lot of blanks in advance, then the mayor signed 
also, and the paper was ready to be filled with the 
amount, name of creditor, date and number, torn out 
and given to the creditor. This was not less careless 
than convenient. 

The city warrants were considered good security for 
one half their nominal value. Many of them were used 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 221 

by Meiggs as security for borrowed money. lie was 
constitutionally a borrower. From tbe time when be 
undertook his North Beach speculation, be was never 
out of debt; be was nearly always pushed. " Shinning 
round " for money was a large part of his regular busi- 
ness. He said, in a joke, that it seemed an unnatural 
situation to him if he left his dwelling in the morning 
without having to hunt up a loan of forty thousand dol- 
lars in the course of tbe day. He found that nothing 
was accepted as security by the borrowers generally 
with less objection, delay and suspicion than city war- 
rants ; nor when be came to examine the circumstances, 
could he find any other fraudulent paper which he could 
obtain or use with so little danger to himself. 

There is reason to believe (for the facts were never 
judicially or officially investigated) that Meiggs took a 
book of blank warrants already signed by the mayor and 
controller, and filled them up with the name, sum, date 
and number, in some cases copying the warrants which 
he had previouslj' received, so that it would be a difficult 
matter for the officials to distinguish between the original 
and tbe duplicate. As no interest was to be paid on 
them, and there were no funds with which to redeem 
them, and no suspicions had been excited as to their gen- 
uineness, the holders did not take them to the controllers 
office for examination. Thus month after month went 
by without tbe discovery of tbe forgery, and meantime 
Meiggs was getting deeper and deeper into difficult}'. To 
prevent detection it was necessary for him to pay interest 
punctually every month. Many of the lenders discov- 



222 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ered that he was ready to pay more than the market 
rate and they exacted from three to ten per cent, a month, 
and some of them, it is said, even took One per cent, a 
day. His burden rapidly accumulated until his debts 
reached eight hundred thousand dollars; that was the 
figure fixed by common rumor, and, if correct, he prob- 
ably had to pay not less than thirty thousand dollars 
monthly of interest. So long as he paid this, his cred- 
itors generally were satisfied to let the debt stand, and 
each might imagine that he was the only one to whom 
Meiggs was paying heavy tribute. 

Sec. 107. Other Frauds. .The forged warrants were 
not the only fraudulent resource of Meiggs. He used a 
number of forged promissory notes, and it is supposed 
that as he was not a skillful penman, the signatures, 
which were very well done, were executed by a clerk in 
his service. It is possible that some signatures repudi- 
ated as forgeries after Meiggs' flight, would never have 
been questioned if he had remained to defend himself. 
By his course he placed himself at the mercy of some 
who were worse morally than he was ; but never having 
been publicly exposed, they could safely charge him with 
offences which he had never committed, and b}^ this in- 
justice to him they avoided the payment of honest debts. 
Among the forged notes used by Meiggs was one for fif- 
teen thousand dollars, purporting to be drawn by Thomp- 
son k Co. A member of the firm discovered the fraud, 
but consented, under the influence of Meiggs' pleading, 
to conceal it, told the holder of the note that it was all 
right, and afterwards was compelled to pay it. Meiggs 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 223 

made a fraudulent overissue of stock of the lumber com- 
pany of which he was president to the amount of three 
hundred thousand dollars, and upon this he obtained 
seventy-five thousand dollars; so said rumor, accepted 
at the time, but never proved to be true. 

Sec. 108. Meiggs Flight. At last, in September, 1854, 
it became evident to Meiggs that detection could not be 
avoided much longer. His only chance to escape bank- 
ruptcy and the consequent exposure of his frauds was 
based upon the hope that real estate at North Beach 
would come into demand ; but many circumstances indi- 
cated that business would continue to grow worse rather 
better. Besides, the manner of people towards him be- 
gan to change; his continuous solicitations for money, 
his payment of high rates, and the multitude of his loans 
became a subject of conversation and suspicion among 
the brokers and bankers. They foresaw his failure. Re- 
mark was made about his relation to street contracts, in 
some of which it was supposed that he had an improper 
interest. It was time for him to leave San Francisco. 

He bought or chartered the brig ''American," of sev- 
eral hundred tons, supplied it with a good lot of provis- 
ions and fine stores, including canned meats and wines, 
told his friends that he was going out to sail on the bay, 
took his family and brother along, and on the sixth of 
October sailed out through the Golden Gate and disap- 
peared from the horizon of California. It was reported 
on the same day that he had failed for eight hundred 
thousand dollars, and when it was announced the next 
day that he had fled there was a terrific excitement. 



224 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The holders of the Meiggs warrants rushed to the City 
Hall, and there manj^ learned that they had nothing save 
worthless paper as security. They numbered hundreds, 
and belonged to all classes, including bankers, merchants, 
city officials, mechanics, draj'tnen and public women. 
He had taken advantage of the people to whom he fur- 
nished employment, and even his laundress was not 
spared. The city treasurer was a victim to the extent of 
twenty thousand dollars. 

His brother, John G. Meiggs, who went with him, had 
been elected city controller a month before, but had not 
yet entered upon the duties of his office. His nomina- 
tion was secured by Henry's influence, who perhaps 
hoped to have an opportunity of managing the forged 
warrants, so that their character would never become 
known to the public. There was no reason to suppose 
that John knew anything of the forgeries. 

As there was no opportunity for trying him, the char- 
acter and extent of his crimes were never established 
judicially. Many of those robbed by him considered it 
better for their credit to say nothing of the loss, save to 
their intimate friends. It was reported in the news- 
papers, at the time, that the nominal value of his forged 
paper- warrants, stocks and notes, amounted to two million 
dollars, and that he carried away live hundred thousand 
dollars with him ; but afterwards the former figure was 
reduced to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the 
latter to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 

The bark "American" touched at Tahiti, and went 
thence to Chile, where soon after his arrival he found 



THE GOLDEN EEA IN DECLINE. 285 

employment as an overseer of a small gang of men. His 
story had followed him, and people generally regarded 
him at first with suspicion and dislike ; but the railroad 
contractors found that he was useful, and gave him a 
chance to exercise his talents. The work was very 
difficult, and the country poor in men competent to 
take charge of a large number of laborers in an enter- 
prise of this kind. It was new to Meiggs, but he had 
high capacities, and was soon able to surpass all his 
rivals. He became a contractor, succeeded, and built 
the most difficult parts of the road between Valparaiso 
and Santiago. He said afterwards that he landed in 
Chile with only eight thousand two hundred dollars, 
and that he was at one time so poor that he was com- 
pelled to pawn his watch. Whether this was true or 
not, it is certain that in a short time he was recognized 
as a wealthy man, able to take contracts which required 
the advance of large sums of money. After he became 
well known, it was universally admitted that his arrival 
in Chile had been a great benefit to the country. The 
government, bankers, engineers, sub-contractors and 
laborers agreed in praising him. 

His fame filled South America, When Peru under- 
took the construction of her system of railroads, he 
was invited to become the principal contractor, and he 
accepted the invitation. The possession of capital, ex- 
perience and confidence gave him political influence, and 
he became one of the leading men of Lima. lie built 
eight hundred miles of railroad, including some of the 
most difficult work of the kind in the world, and re- 

15 



226 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ceived on his contracts more than one hundred million 
dollars in Peru. As in California, before his departure, 
and in Chile, he succeeded in gaining general esteem. 

For years he was anxious to return to San Francisco. 
By agents he bought up nearly all his notes, though paying 
in many cases only a small percentage of the principal 
originally loaned to him. In 1873, his friends applied to 
the legislature of California for the passage of a bill to 
exempt him from trial for his crimes, in case he should 
return. Both houses passed the bill, but the governor 
vetoed it, and that was the end of it. If signed, it 
would have been void ; for the constitution does not con- 
fer the pardoning power upon the legislature. So Mr. 
Meiggs stayed in Peru, where he died in 1877, and was 
followed to the grave by the lamentations of the whole 
people, who admired him not less for his amiable char- 
acter and charitable deeds among them than for his 
signal services to the country in the construction of its 
railroads. 

Sec. 109. 1855. As compared with 1854, which 
had been a year of panic in real estate and great loss in 
mercantile business for San Francisco, 1855 showed a 
decrease of six million dollars in the gold shipment, and 
of eighteen thousand in the number of immigrants arriv- 
ing by sea. In February Page, Bacon k Co.'s bank, 
which had bought twenty million dollars' worth of gold 
dust in the previous year, and was the leading financial 
establishment of the state, failed in consequence of the 
embarrassments of its parent house in St. Louis. This 
disaster was followed by the failure of Adams & Co., the 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 227 

chief express company of California, and of many other 
banking houses, most of which never resumed. Adams 
& Co., who had built up the express traffic, and had a 
much larger business (counting transportation, banking, 
and the number of their servants together) than any 
other house in the state, disappeared forever, and Wells, 
Fargo & Co., the rival establishment, succeeded to the 
place. An excitement about the Kern river mines 
agitated the whole state, disturbed business in San Fran- 
cisco during February, and then suddenly died out when 
the truth became known. Broderick obtained control of 
the democratic state convention and secured the renom- 
i nation of Bigler, whereupon the chivalry leaders joined 
the new secret political society of the know-nothings, who 
obtained control of the state and city administrations, 
the Whig party having disappeared. The duty of the 
legislature to elect a federal senator this year was not 
performed, the members being unable to agree in a choice. 
The floating debt of the city was funded, three hundred 
and twenty-two thousand dollars in bonds being issued 
for two million fifty-nine thousand dollars in city war- 
rants, most of which were repudiated, while others were 
acknowledged to be worth about one third of the sums 
which the city had solemnly promised to pay. This was 
an act of repudiation, the only one in the history of the 
city, but was so represented to the people that they did 
not fully appreciate the dishonesty of refusing to pay the 
explicit obligations incurred by the officials. 

Sec. 110. i & Co. Jn 1849, the house of 

Adams k Co.. expressmen, of Boston, sent D. II. lias: 



228 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

as resident partner to found a branch house in San Fran- 
cisco, where he arrived on the thirty-first October; and 
in a few weeks Adams & Co. made larger shipments of 
gold to New York than any other house. The business 
increased rapidly, and a banking department was added 
to the express, at the urgent solicitation of merchants. 
At first Adams & Co. did not extend their routes beyond 
Sacramento and Stockton, connecting at the former city 
with .Freeman k Co.'s express, which had routes thence 
to the " northern mines," as they were then called, and 
at the latter city with Newell & Co., which had offices 
in the camps of the southern mines. Subsequently the 
firms of Freeman and Newell were bought out, and 
Adams & Co. had their offices and agents in all the 
towns of any note in California. They were, in 1853, 
unquestionably the leading business house of the state, 
dealing with more people, furnishing more accommoda- 
tion to commerce and industry, handling more money, 
and probably making more profit than any other estab- 
lishment. They undertook a careful system of assays to 
ascertain the value of the gold dust from different camps 
— ranging from fourteen dollars and fifty cents in parts of 
Mariposa county to nineteen dollars and fifty cents on the 
Lower Yuba — and they paid the miners the value, less 
a moderate discount. Wherever they opened an agency, 
the price of gold dust rose. By Adams & Co. the miners 
sent money to their families in the eastern states — pro- 
bably aggregating ^ve hundred thousand dollars month- 
ly — and also obtained their letters, which were often 
addressed to San Francisco, and were there hunted out 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 229 

by the express for their customers, scattered through the 
Sierra Nevada. They used their influence efficiently to 
introduce the private gold coin — five, ten and twenty 
dollar pieces — struck by J. G. Kellogg and TVass, Molitor 
& Co. This money, though not authorized by law, con- 
tained as much gold as the government mintage of the 
same respective figures, and, in the scarcity of the other 
coins, was a great convenience to the public. Some of 
the bankers, expecting their profits in exchange and 
gold dust to be diminished by the general acceptance of 
the private coin, tried to excite prejudice against it, but 
were defeated partly by the influence of Adams & Co. 

In May, 1854, the eastern branch of Adams & Co. 
was merged into a joint stock company, and the Califor- 
nian branch was reorganized, with D. H. Haskell and I. 
C. Woods as general partners and Alvin Adams as a 
special partner, the business remaining* under the same 
style and management, and continuing to extend and 
gain favor. The profits of the express department were 
about fifty thousand dollars a month, and the house had 
a capital of two million dollars. A New York bank 
which had promised to assist Page, Bacon & Co., of St. 
Louis, in building and raising the money for a railroad 
from that city to Cincinnati, having failed to keep its 
engagement, the former house saw itself on the verge of 
failure, and sent one of its partners to San Francisco to 
get as much gold dust as possible. Unfortunately for the 
Californians, the next steamer from Panama with the 
news of the St. Louis trouble was behind time, so that 
two steamers left San Francisco after the arrival of the 



230 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

partner and before the people knew that a disaster was 
coming. The result was that about one million dollars 
more had been carried away than w^ould have been if the 
merchants and bankers had had the usual warning, and 
the lack of that sum was probably the main cause of the 
completeness of the crash that smote San Francisco on 
the twenty-third February. 

On the day when the run began on Page, Bacon 
& Co., it became evident to Adams & Co.'s bank that 
they would have to close the next day, and that the 
attachments issued after the closing would not only 
be a source of ruinous expense, but would give such 
assets as might be saved from the ruin to a few cred- 
itors, leaving the others to lose everything. The house 
owed perhaps two million dollars to depositors — mostly 
poor men, there were no savings banks then — and 
the alarm was so great and general that it would all 
be demanded the next day, though there was not cash 
on hand to pay one tenth of it. A large portion of the 
capital was in fire-proof brick buildings, which had de- 
creased much in value with the decline of the mining 
towns, and yet would pay a good profit on the invest- 
ment if the express business could be continued, as the 
resident partners hoped it would be. 

To preserve the popularity and good- will of the ex- 
press department, if possible, the resident partners con- 
sidered it important to secure a ratable distribution of 
the assets of the bank among the creditors. There was 
then no federal bankrupt act, and the state law gave the 
property to the attaching creditors according to the date 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 231 

of their levies; so the first might get paid in full, while 
those later got nothing. To avoid the injustice of the 
attachment law, if possible, it was considered advisable 
to obtain the appointment of a receiver, who should act 
as trustee for all the creditors and pay his fair share to 
each. An amicable suit was therefore commenced in 
the name of Adams against the other partners, and under 
this proceeding, A. A. Cohen was appointed assignee, 
with instructions to take charge of all the property. 

The popular excitement was intense throughout the 
state, the number of losers being great in the interior, as 
well as in the metropolis. The officers of the law in 
various towns refused to recognize the receiver, seized 
the assets within their reach, and distributed them to 
the resident creditors, pajdng in many cases not only the 
principal debt, but considerable sums for legal expenses, 
arising from attachment suits. In one town the bank 
was broken open by a mob and the money and dust in 
the vault were paid out by a committee of citizens to 
persons producing certificates of deposit, or claims backed 
by writs of attachment. It was soon evident that neither 
the banking nor express business could ever be revived. 
Much of the property had been taken illegally, but the 
costs of recovering it would far exceed its value. 

On the night of his appointment as receiver, Mr. 
Cohen, acting with the advice of his counsel, moved the 
cash in the vault, for fear of a mob, from the house of 
Adams k Co. to that of Alsop & Co., bankers. The 
receivership having been declared illegal, under the 
state insolvent law, the creditors held a meeting and 



232 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

elected A. A. Cohen, Richard Roman, formerly state 
treasurer, and Jones, of the firm of Palmer, Cook k Co., 
assignees, and by them the assets were transferred from 
the house of Alsop k Co. to that of Palmer, Cook k Co. 
Cohen, having obtained permission to leave the state for 
three months, went to New York, and while there, Naglee, 
who had been appointed receiver, demanded from Roman 
and Jones the possession of the assets ; but in the mean- 
time garnishments had been served by creditors on Pal- 
mer, Cook k Co., and the assignees pleaded inability to 
get the funds from the bank. The same demand was 
made on Cohen, as one of the assignees, when he re- 
turned, and he responded with the same plea. In a suit 
by Naglee against Cohen, before Judge Hager, judgment 
was rendered for two hundred and sixty-nine thousand 
dollars, and he was imprisoned for contempt when he did 
not pay. Meantime, the vigilance committee broke out; 
Heydenfeldt, one of the three justices of the supreme 
court, left the state ; Terry, another, was imprisoned by 
the committee j Murray, the third justice, could not hold 
court alone, and no other tribunal could release Cohen. 
He was held in durance for six months, but when his 
case was heard he was released on his plea that it was 
an impossibility to get the assets from Palmer, Cook 
&Co. 

The law provided that a bank could not be discharged 
under the insolvent law, and this principle had the corol- 
lary that the assets of a bank could not be distributed 
equitably among the creditors, so the assets of Adams k 
Co. became the subject of a general scramble by creditors 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 233 

and lawyers, and reams of paper were required to con- 
tain the legal records of the proceedings. Most of the 
creditors got a trifle; some got payment three or five 
times over; others, after partial collections, sold their 
certificates to others, who collected again. Men who got 
hold of property of Adams k Co. bought up claims, em- 
ployed agents to garnishee them, and otherwise managed 
to keep what they had. The litigation continued for 
seven }~ears, and most of the property was eaten up by the 
litigation, or disposed of so that no judicial decree showed 
what had become of it. A storm of obloquy for years 
followed the manager and the first receiver. The poor 
depositors, who would have got most of the mone}^ in the 
bank if the doors had not closed for the purpose of giving 
the money to a receiver, obtained nothing, and they and 
the press generally denounced the proceedings as a de- 
liberate fraud, but the accusation was never made the 
subject of trial in a criminal suit. 

Sec. 111. Panama Railroad. The first railroad 
train crossed the isthmus of Panama, from ocean to 
ocean, on the twenty- third of January. Work had 
been commenced in 1850 with the expectation that 
the road would be finished within a year or two, at a 
cost of not more than one million and a half dollars. 
It was only forty-eight miles long; its highest eleva- 
tion was three hundred feet above the sea; for a con- 
siderable distance it ran over ground nearly level; it 
had neither long tunnels, deep rock cuttings, nor any 
great river to cross; and the right of way cost little. 
It had none of the difficulties that make railroads ex- 



234 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ceptionally expensive in the United States. Its pro- 
jectors thought they had an immense fortune in their 
hands, but they soon found unexpected obstacles. The 
ignorance and indolence of the natives, and the fearful 
mortality of the imported laborers were beyond all 
calculation. Graders died by thousands. The num- 
ber of victims was never reported, and was studiously 
concealed. The line at the eastern end ran for eisfht 
miles through a swamp which smote nearly all who 
worked in it with pestilence. While the laborers were 
struck down with fever on the road, the New York 
capitalists who had undertaken the enterprise were 
borne down by the fearful expense. The millionaires, 
Howland and Aspinwall, were induced to take hold 
of the enterprise, and even they were in danger. At 
last, however, by the help of Senator Gwin, hav- 
ing obtained a mail contract which assured a large 
revenue, and improved credit to them, they were 
enabled to see the work finished, after seven and a 
half millions of dollars had been spent upon it. The 
discomfort of riding thirty miles on a mule, and trav- 
eling thirty-five miles in a canoe under charge of rude 
and nearly nude negroes, and the danger of catching 
the virulent Panama fever, by sleeping on the ground, 
were thus obviated, and the voyage between New 
York and San Francisco became relatively a pleasant 
trip, as well as cheaper than before. Travelers, espec- 
ially those with large trunks, not unfrequently had to 
pay seventy -five dollars to get from Chagres to Pan- 
ama by boat and mule. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 235 

After the construction of the road, the number of 
lady immigrants to California rapidly increased, and 
so did the Californians of both sexes returning to the 
east for short trips, to see their relatives and visit 
their old homes. These travelers demanded cabin 
passages, with luxurious accommodations — they did 
not ox) in the steerage, as in earlier vears — and the 
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which had previ- 
ously built boats larger, more commodious, more ele- 
gant, and higher above the water than any used or 
that could with any reasonable degree of safety be 
used on the stormy Atlantic, ordered other boats still 
larger and more elegant — veritable ocean palaces. 
Though the road and the Pacific mail steamers were 
owned in New York, California supplied the motives 
and the money for building them, and they were rela- 
tively of more importance to San Francisco than to 
any other city. 

Sec. 112. Gambling. Gambling was a prominent 
feature of San Francisco life before 1855. It had 
been permitted under the Mexican dominion, had not 
been punished under the military government that 
came with the conquest, and was made a source of 
revenue by the ayuntamiento in August, 1849. Tins 
legalization coinciding with the great influx of i mini- 
grants by sea and land, and a large increase in the 
gold yield, raised gambling to be one of the most 
prominent branches of business in the city. The 
gamblers had the best buildings in the busiest streets, 
paid the largest rents, and had the most customers. 



236 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Their halls on a level with the street were crowded 
with people from dark till late in the night. Every- 
thing was done to make these halls attractive. They 
were brilliantly lighted, fine orchestras or companies 
of vocalists furnished music, and elegant pictures 
adorned the walls. On one side was a bar where 
liquor could be had, but the main business was done 
at the green tables rented to gamblers. And there 
they sat with their gambling implements so long as 
there was business or hope for it. There was usually 
no lack of it, for these gambling saloons were the 
general resort in the evening, and there could be 
found officials, lawyers, merchants, mechanics and 
hod-carriers. The professional gamblers were chiefly 
Americans, French and Mexicans. The first class 
had the faro tables, with the last monte was the favor- 
ite, and. the Frenchman preferred rouge-et-noir and 
roulette. The games were such that there was no 
limit to the number of participants, and that nobody 
but the dealers should handle the cards or other im- 
plements. Chairs were placed round the table, and 
outside of the persons occupying seats stood sev- 
eral lines of men, interested either in betting or in 
watching the bets of others. Not unfrequently the 
dealer had an assistant, sometimes a woman of pre- 
possessing appearance elegantly dressed, seated on 
the opposite side of the table, to collect the winnings 
and pay the losses. The dealer usually called out be- 
fore dealing "make your bets, gentlemen;" after a 
few minutes he added, "the game is made; all down, no 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 237 

more." Then he dealt, gathered in, paid out, and 
went on as before. In front of the dealer was piled 
up a stack of gold and silver coin. Mexican doub- 
loons or ounces and Mexican dollars were in 1849 the 
bulk of the money; later the slug or fifty dollar pieces 
and the American half dollars occupied a large place. 
Not unfrequently nuggets or purses of dust were 
thrown upon the table, and if the owner won he 
stated the weight, and the gambler examined the 
article for a moment, and if he thought the statement 
correct, or nearly so, he paid over its value in coin, 
sometimes sacrificing something to avoid delay or 
prevent complaints. 

Anions the notable sfamblino- houses were the El 
Dorado, on the south-east corner of Kearny and 
Washington, the Verandah on the opposite side of 
Washington, the Bella Union, on the other corner, 
the California Exchange, on the north-eastern corner 
of Clay and Kearny, the Arcade, the Casino, and the 
.Polka on Clay and Commercial streets. 

At one time a dozen large houses were occupied, 
and each had from five to fifteen tables, with nearly a 
hundred tables in all, and the coin displayed was 
sometimes more than ten thousand dollars to a table, 
the attraction increasing with the amount exhibited. 
An adventurer would frequently pass a table with a 
small stock of money, saying there was not so much 
as he would win if .the luck turned in his favor. 

Sec. 113. Walker in Nicaragua. Walker's thirst 
for filibuster glory was not satisfied by his campaign 



238 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

in Lower California. His reputation for courage, and 
his ability to command the services of men worthy of 
such a leader, brought an invitation to him from the 
defeated rebels in Nicaragua. That country had been 
devastated by a civil war between two hostile races, 
the Spaniards on one side, and the Indians on the 
other, the former having their chief strength in the 
city of Grenada, the latter at Leon. The Grenadinos 
having triumphed, the Leoneses, willing to sacrifice 
their country rather than submit to enemies of their 
own nationality, appealed to Walker. The oppor- 
tunity of obtaining power in any portion of Spanish- 
America was welcome to him, so he collected sixty 
desperate followers, left San Francisco, landed in Nic- 
aragua, and with the help of the Leoneses soon scat- 
tered the Grenadino troops and reached a position, in 
which, with prudence and patience, he could have be- 
come the virtual ruler of all Central America. But 
prudence and patience were not among his qualities. 
He did not know how to pacify the hostile, nor even 
to confirm the friendly in their favorable dispositions. 
He would neither regard rights nor conciliate preju- 
dices, if he thought he could attain his end by over- 
riding them, and he greatly overestimated his own 
capacity. Thus it was that soon after conquering the 
Spanish party, and while the Indians were willing to 
concede to him the substance, though for their own 
safety they could not surrender the show of power, 
he defied them, assumed dictatorial power, and treated 
disobedience to his orders as treason, to be punished 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 239 

with death. Not content with offending the people 
by turning upon his benefactors and excluding the 
natives of the country from the highest offices, he un- 
dertook to change its institutions, and abrogate the 
laws prohibiting slavery. 

Yanderbilt controlled the Nicaragua steamer line 
connecting New York with San Francisco, and though 
he carried recruits and supplies to Walker gratuitously 
or cheaply, he did not comply with all the demands 
of the arch-filibuster who then ordered a sale of the 
transit franchise across Nicaragua; and C. K. Gar- 
rison, who had been Vanderbilt's a^ent, became the 
purchaser. The Leoneses and Grenadinos were now 
united against him, and Colonel Cauty, an English- 
man, another agent of Yanderbilt, managed, at the 
head of a Costa Rica army, to sieze the steamer on the 
lake, thus broke up the transit business, and deprived 
Walker of a large part of the revenue and of the hope 
of re-enforcements. 

Through nearly two years of bloodshed and confu- 
sion Walker ruled like a stolid madman, till he was 
compelled by native victories to escape by surrender- 
ing himself to United States officers, who took him 
back to their country, whence he returned after 
months, but was captured by an American naval v 
sel and taken again to New ( )rleans. lie vi 
Central America once more as a filibuster, and landed 
in Honduras where he was shot in Septeml 

Sec. 114. 1856. The general ' 
which began two yeai through 



240 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The general conviction rising in the public mind, that 
the state had wonderful agricultural and horticultural 
resources, the great areas of unoccupied federal land, 
the final settlement of the titles of many of the large 
Mexican grants, and the high wages, led to a demand 
for immigration, and meetings were held to devise 
means for constructing a good wagon road over the 
Sierra Nevada, thus removing one of the chief obsta- 
cles to the journey overland. Several years later the 
road was completed from Placerville to Genoa in time 
to render great service to the development of the Corn- 
stock lode. The merchants had, in 1854, reduced the 
current value of francs from twenty-five to twenty 
cents; in 1855 they refused to accept the octagonal 
fifty dollar piece or slugs, coined by Moffatt & Co., and 
in the year of 1856 they rejected the eagles, double 
eagles and half eagles of private coinage, thus restrict- 
ing themselves to o^old and silver from the American 
mints. Although under ordinary circumstances the 
coinage of money without government authority is 
treated as a crime, yet the demands of business in Cal- 
ifornia were so imperious that millions of dollars, not 
in imitation of the mint stamps, however, were coined 
without secrecy by citizens in San Francisco, circu- 
lated with the favor of leading business men and ac- 
cepted by everybody at par. The material was gold, 
usually mixed with about twelve per cent, of silver, 
and without copper; and as each piece contained as 
much gold as one of an equal denomination issued by 
the government, and had the silver besides, it would 
sell for more in the European market. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 241 

Something of the improvement in the city admin- 
istration observable after this year, is to be credited 
to the adoption of the consolidation act, or new city 
charter, which created the county of San Mateo out 
of what had previously been the southern part of the 
county of San Francisco, and organized the city and 
county of San Francisco as it now exists. There had 
formerly been a county government and a city gov- 
ernment, making much unnecessary expense, and giv- 
ing many opportunities for political fraud. The aver- 
age annual expenditure of the city government for 
seven years from 1849 to 1856 was two million dol- 
lars; and for the next seven years only six hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars, justifying the inference that 
one million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
had been wasted or stolen every year before the time 
of the vigilance committee. 

Sec. 115. Political Corruption. The American 
political system had in 1855 reached, a greater depth 
of corruption in San Francisco than in any other part 
of the United States. The people were new-comers, 
not long acquainted with their leading men, and their 
officials were selected at random. The profits of mer- 
cantile business and mechanical labor far exceeded the 
salaries of most of the government offices, which, be- 
sides, were as a class beyond the reach of men who 
would not bribe conventions and descend to low 
associations. The sudden and complete formation of 
the American government of California was not more 
wonderful than was the organization of the spoils sys 
16 



242 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tern of party management in San Francisco, under the 
lead of men who had received the highest education 
in political corruption before they left New York, 
which city furnished about one sixth of the population 
of the Californian metropolis, including a majority of 
those who controlled the dominant faction of the dom- 
inant party. All the arts founded or perfected by 
Tammany Hall or the Albany Regency for defrauding 
the people out of a fair choice in the nomination of 
candidates or the election of officials were practised by 
master hands in San Francisco. Paiiy conventions, 
as expressions of public opinion, became a farce. The 
vilest ruffians were publicly employed by prominent 
politicians with instructions that they must carry such 
and such wards. When election day approached, as- 
sociations were publicly formed for the purpose of 
selling their votes to the highest bidders. Gan^s of 
men marched or went in wagons from one precinct to 
another, voting in every ward. There were several 
voting places where the ballot box was in charge of 
men ready to take out the genuine ballots, in case of 
need, and substitute others; and some of the boxes had 
false sides, in which the fraudulent tickets were hid- 
den in advance. 

Most of the policemen were appointed to reward 
partisan service, and were grossly inefficient and cor- 
rupt. They could be trusted for untiring labor in 
elections, but little was to be expected from them in 
the matter of arresting criminals who had money or 
influence. Some of the judges were honest, but the 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 243 

laws were full of technicalities for the benefit of the 
guilty, and the executive officers whose duty it was 
to collect evidence against criminals neglected their 
duty. In fact, some of the boldest and most danger- 
ous criminals in California were themselves officials. 
A thousand homicides had been committed in the 
city between 1849 and 1856; and there had been only 
seven executions. The crimes upon the ballot-box, 
the corruptions of the public service, the prominence 
of notorious ruffians and their patrons in city offices, 
the forgeries of Meiggs, and the failure of the courts 
to administer criminal justice promptly, or to clearly 
fix the blame for the failure of Adams & Co., upon 
some individual, had tried the patience and provoked 
the indignation of the people, until there was a gen- 
eral desperation. The opinion prevailed that ft was 
impossible to correct these political crimes in accord- 
ance with law; the only remedy was to be reached by 
a disregard of the law. 

Sec. 116. Murder of King. While popular feeling 
was thus excited, at least among the more respectable 
classes of society, the " Bulletin" made its appearance 
and devoted its bitter energies to the denunciation of 
the crimes and criminals that had given most offense. 
Many of its attacks upon individuals were not sus- 
tained by any proof, or even plausible testimony, and 
others were unjust and even inexcusable; but t! 
mistakes were overlooked by the people generally for 
the sake of the good motives attributed to Mr. Kii 
the editor; and he was regarded, if not by the ma- 



244 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

jority, at least by a considerable portion of the com- 
munity, as the man who should lead to a purification 
in the management of public business. No editor had 
before or has since in California reached so exalted a 
position as a hero in popular estimation. 

Such were the circumstances when on Tuesday, 
May 14, 1856, he mentioned in his journal the fact 
that James P. Casey (who recently, while inspector of 
election in the Twelfth ward, at a time when he was 
not known as a candidate for office, had stuffed tickets 
with his own name on them as a supervisor into the 
ballot-box and then declared himself elected.) was a 
graduate of the New York state prison at Sing Sing. 
This statement was true; but Casey, who, though he 
had committed many breaches of the peace at San 
Francisco without subjecting himself to any punish- 
ment, thought he could safely wash out the exposure 
of his convict character with blood. The " Bulletin" 
containing the offensive article was published about 
three p. m., and two hours later, King on his way 
home was stopped at the corner of Montgomery and 
Washington streets by Casey, who when about fifteen 
steps distant, called out to him " Draw and defend 
yourself;" and a second later, before King could draw 
his pistol, fired. The bullet struck him in the left 
breast, passed through his lung, and came out under 
his shoulder blade. He stasrffered into an office near 
by, and sank helpless. The wound was evidently 
dangerous, and whether it was to be fatal or not, there 
was no doubt of Casey's murderous intent. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 245 

The news that the popular editor had been shot 
spread through the city in half an hour, and at six 
o'clock the sheriff was afraid that the angry multitude 
collected around the jail, to which Casey had been 
hurried for safety by his friends, would take him out 
by force. The mayor vainly harangued them in favor 
of law and order. They hooted him, and remained 
there till a late hour of the night waiting for a leader, 
but none came. 

Sec. 117. Vigilance Committee of 1856. The en- 
emies of the prevalent political corruption, including 
many who had no special admiration for Mr. King, saw 
the opportunity in the popular excitement, to correct 
some of the abuses of the government. The recollec- 
tion of the vigilance committee of 1851 was still fresh 
in the minds of many who had participated in it, and 
its reputation was good with those who had come to 
the city since. Its method of procedure was a pre- 
cedent; its members were solicited to become the 
leaders in a new organization. All the men of the 
city were in the street that evening, and there was a 
general demand for a vigilance committee. 

About nine o'clock notice was circulated that a 
meeting would be held in Cunningham's warehouse on 
Battery street, near Union, for the purpose of forming 
a committee. After several hundred persons had col- 
lected an attempt was made to organize, but some of 
the most active persons were looked upon with suspi- 
cion, and there was no cordial support of any proposal. 
Many of those present moved off into another room 



246 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and they, too, failed to agree upon and plan of action. 
Other later efforts had similar abortive results, and 
finally they separated without doing anything. 

The next morning notice was published that there 
would be a meeting at a house on Sacramento street, 
below Battery. The place had been occupied for a 
Know-nothing lodge, was spacious and had double 
doors with wickets, well fitted for holding secret meet- 
ings. Door-keepers excluded all who were not vouched 
for by the few who engaged the hall, and these few 
were mostly ex-members of the committee of 1851. 
So soon as the people learned the character of the 
movement there was a great rush for admission, but 
much caution was used and they got in slowly. Some 
of the prominent business men made a little gathering 
and discussed the method of organization. Sugges- 
tions that an oath, should be taken, that every member 
should sign his name, and that he should be known 
by the number in the order of his signature were 
favorably received. A book was obtained, an oath 
written in it, and a clerk placed in charge of the rec- 
ord. There had been an executive committee five 
vears before, and W. T. Coleman, one of its active 
members, a ready talker, a good worker, and a popular 
man, was urged to become one of the new executive 
committee. Finding that his excuses Were not accept- 
ed, and that his efforts to put others before him were 
overruled, he yielded, and then asked a dozen or more of 
the merchants near him, one by one, whether they 
would serve with him. They said "yes," and thus 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 247 

was formed the nucleus of the executive committee. 
Afterwards they elected about a score of others, some 
of them being chosen to represent certain nationalities 
and occupations, so as to command the support and 
confidence of the people generally. The executive 
committee had full control, originated every order, and 
decided every question. The members were not chosen 
by the body which they governed; their names were 
not submitted to it for approval. The power appeared 
to be thrust into their hands, and after the start had 
been made neither they nor the multitude objected, 
though if the duration of the work, and the expense, 
which far exceeded expectation, could have been fore- 
seen, the organization would doubtless have been made 
in a different manner. Some of the executive com- 
mittee were indiscreet, and others inefficient, but the 
result proved that it had a large preponderance of pru- 
dence and administrative capacity. Isaac Bluxome, 
who had been secretary of the executive committee in 
the first organization, had the same position in the 
second. In many ways the experience of 1851 was 
made available in 1856. 

Sec. 118. Swift Organization. So many members 
were received on the first day that no room in the 
building on Sacramento street could hold those who 
wanted to stay there, and the place of asseml)L> 
was transferred to the large hall of the Turn-verein 
building on Bush street near Powell. This i>lace 

O J- 

was filling up in the evening when the president of 
the executive committee gave notice that all the 



248 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

members numbered from one to one hundred inclusive 
would form a military company, and should meet in 
a designated corner of the hall and elect their officers, 
subject to approval by the executive committee; 
while those numbered from one hundred and one to 
two hundred should meet in another corner and form 
another company, and so on. The French, however, 
who were numerous, and were scattered irregularly, 
as to their numbers, among the others, and were 
ordered to organize separate companies, because few 
of them could speak English. 

This distribution of the members into military com- 
panies gave occupation to all, as the arming and 
drilling began immediately; and partially relieved the 
executive committee from questions and advice. 
The executive committee distributed its work among 
sub-committees. Great zeal was shown by the offi- 
cials generally, and with marvelous rapidity three 
thousand men were armed, drilled and established 
in armories, while arrangements were made at the 
same time for covering a large expense, and meeting 
many contingencies of political or other character. 
Several of the militia companies in the city dis- 
banded because they were unwilling to be called into 
service against the committee, which they then joined, 
taking their muskets with them; and arms were ob- 
tained from various sources, so that there was soon a 
good supply. On the second day several companies 
under arms were stationed in the streets near head- 
quarters to prevent any interruption of the proceed- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 249 

ings. There was a general suspension of business, so 
that citizens could attend to what they considered the 
most pressing duty. They devoted themselves to it, 
and in three days had got into good working order. 

Sec. 119. Execution of Casey and Cora. The first 
meeting had been held on Wednesday, and on Satur- 
day the executive committee instructed a sub-commit- 
tee to make arrangements for taking Casey from the 
jail the next day. Twenty-four companies were called 
to assemble at nine o'clock on Sundav niorninir at 
their respective armories in different parts of the city; 
and then further orders were delivered to each cap- 
tain to march to a certain position on Broadway, near 
Dupont. No information had been given to the pub- 
lic, nor to the captains, beyond the brief note sent to 
each, but it was well understood that when the vig- 
ilance committee moved something serious was to be 
expected. The streets bristled with bayonets; mili- 
tary companies marched without music, noise or con- 
fusion to their designated stations; and citizens, not 
members of the organization, filled the streets and 
covered the hills near the jail to watch the proceed- 
ings. An artillery company with a brass cannon halted 
in front of the jail and turned the gun upon it. AYhen 
all the military arrangements had been made, two 
vigilance officials went to the door and informed 
Sheriff Scannell that the}' had come to take Mr. 
Casey. They were told that no resistance would be 
made. Casey begged permission to speak ten minutes 
before he should be hanged, his expectation being evi- 



250 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

dently that he would be executed without delay. He 
was assured that he should have a fair and deliberate 
trial, with a right to be heard in his defense. He 
submitted then with a good grace, was led out, placed 
in a carriage, and driven under strong guard to the 
vigilance headquarters, where he was securely im- 
mured. Charles Cora, who had murdered United 
States Marshal Richardson, and had* been tried once, 
with a disagreement of the jury, was also taken from 
the jail to the same place. On Monday King died, 
and on Tuesda}^ the executive committee, acting as a 
jury, tried Casey. No person was present at the trial 
save the accused, members of the vigilance committee 
and witnesses. The testimony was given under oath 
though there was no lawful authority for its administra- 
tion. Hearsay testimony was excluded; the general 
rules of evidence observed in the courts were adopted; 
the accused heard all the witnesses, cross-examined 
those against him, summoned such as he wanted in 
his favor, had an attorney to assist him, and was per- 
mitted to make an argument by himself or his attorney 
in his own defense. Both Casey and Cora were con- 
victed. 

On Wednesday, King was buried with a grand and 
solemn funeral, the whole city being draped in mourn- 
ing; and while the procession was on the way to the 
cemetery, and in sight of it, Casey and Cora were 
hanged in front of the vigilance headquarters. Both 
claiming to be Catholics, were shrived by priests of 
their faith before execution, and their corpses were 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 251 

buried by their respective friends with much display. 
Casey at the time of his death was foreman of a vol- 
unteer fire company, which erected a monument over 
him in the graveyard of the old Mission church, 
with an inscription, "The Lord have mercy on my 
persecutors." The public woman who had supported 
Cora during the latter year of his life, and bad been 
married to him in prison, provided a monument for 
him. 

Before the execution of the two criminals, the 
sentences were submitted to and approved by the 
board of delegates, consisting of three members from 
each company, one of the delegates being usually its 
captain. This board was designed to prevent the 
adoption by the executive committee of any measure 
that would not give satisfaction to the majority of 
the members, and to exclude the suspicion of an in- 
tention to make a dangerous use of power. 

Sec. 120. Ballot-box Stuffers. Having got rid of 
Casey, whose execution required urgency, the execu- 
tive committee settled down into reoular business. 
They established a kitchen in their building, required 
half a dozen or more of their members to be present 
at all hours, and went to work to correct political 
abuses. They arrested half a dozen persona on chargi 
of ballot-box stuffing, and amcnii* these was James 
Sullivan, a native of Ireland, a prize-fighter, a con- 
victed felon, a refugee from New South Wales, to 
which colony he had been transported, and a ballot- 
box stuffer, in which last capacity he had helped 



252 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Casey to the place of supervisor. Demoralized by 
fright, he confessed his crimes and the promise that, 
as he was not guilty of murder, he would not be 
hanged, did not suffice to give him confidence. He 
committed suicida by cutting an artery in his arm 
with a table knife. It was the impression of those 
who observed him for several days before his death, 
that the unwonted deprivation of distilled liquor 
which he had used largely every day for years, pro- 
duced a disease in some respects similar to delirium 
tremens. 

The executive committee were careful to take no 
evidence except that which would be received in the 
courts, and to execute no prisoner unless he had com- 
mitted a crime punishable with death under the law 
of California. What should be done with the crimi- 
nals guilty of ballot-box stuffing and frauds upon the 
public treasury ? They could not be consigned to the 
government prisons nor compelled to pay fines; and 
these were the usual punishments. No penalty seemed 
so convenient as banishment; about a score were taken 
to vessels bound for foreign ports, most of them to 
the Panama steamers, when about to leave the wharf, 
put on board, told that they would be hanged if they 
should come back, and sent away. One of the exiles 
returned while the committee was still in existence; 
but instead of executing him the committee explained 
that he would be spared because, on account of his 
nervous condition, his sentence with the penalty of 
death for return was not read to him. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 253 

The vigilance organization did not interfere in any 
way with the ordinary business of the courts and the 
police. The district courts sat every day to try suits 
involving rights of property, and the criminal courts 
sentenced offenders for theft, assault and drunkenness 
as in ordinary times. The city was far more orderly 
than ever before or since. The professional criminals, 
as a class, fled in terror. Thev would rather work for 
a living than face the danger of prompt and severe 
justice. Everybody was on his good behavior. 

Sec. 121. Law and Order Party. Meantime the 
state authorities were not idle. The governor selected 
AY. T. Sherman (who had before been in the federal 
army, and is now its highest general) to command 
the militia in the district of San Francisco, and put 
down the committee by force. Sherman entered 
upon the duties of his position with zeal, but found 
himself confronted by many difficulties. The com- 
mittee, supported by a strong public opinion and 
liberal money contributions, had obtained nearly all 
the arms in the city. The law and order party were 
divided amon^ themselves and almost without funds. 
A public meeting held by the law and order party 
to organize opposition to the committee was a failure. 
The governor applied to General Wool of the United 
States army for aid with the federal troops, and was 
denied. Some of the responsibility for this action was 
attributed to Dr. Gwin, who, according to report, was 
pleased to see the manner in which Broderick's polit- 
ical friends were treated. Certainly Gwin did not 



254 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

distinguish himself by hostility to the committee; nor 
would it have been politic for him or his party to do 
so on the eve of a presidential election. Sherman, 
rinding that he could not procure arms, and that his 
views did not agree with those of Governor Johnson, 
resigned. Volney E. Howard was appointed to suc- 
ceed him, but did nothing of note. 

Sec. 122. Arrest of Terry. The next step of Gov- 
ernor Johnson was to request President Pierce to 
order the military and naval forces of the United 
States to attack the committee; and he reported that 
the committee was hostile to the federal authority, and 
meant secession. This assertion commanded no credit, 
and injured the influence of Governor Johnson. His 
application was denied. 

On the twenty-first of June, S. A. Hopkins, a 
vigilance sergeant, with two soldiers, was ordered to 
arrest Peuben Maloney, who was wanted as a witness 
to testify in reference to some state arms which had 
been shipped in his custody for the state troops from 
Sacramento to San Francisco on a schooner which J. L. 
Durkee, under order from the committee, had seized at 
the strait between San Pablo and San Francisco bays. 
Maloney was in a room with D. S. Terry, chief justice 
of the supreme court of the state, and a friend, and 
they said Maloney should not be arrested in their 
presence. The sergeant went off, soon returning with 
reinforcements, met Malony and his companions going 
to the state armory, and undertook to make the ar- 
rest there. Resistance was offered, and Hopkins hav- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 255 

ing seized Terry's gun, the latter stabbed him in the 
neck, inflicting a wound which it was supposed would 
prove fatal, though fortunately it soon healed. Terry 
was held a close prisoner for seven weeks, went through 
a long trial, and was at last released, because Hopkins 
recovered. 

The discharge of Terry gave great offense to many 
vigilantes, as the members of the committee were 
called, and the complaints were so loud, that the ex- 
ecutive committee called a meeting: of the general 
committee, the first time the latter body had been 
brought together, and explained the motives of their 
conduct. It was approved, partly because it could 
not be undone. There were many hot heads who did 
not understand the serious dangers to which the 
movement and its leaders had been exposed on ac- 
count of Terry. If he had been executed for defend- 
ing a citizen against arrest by an organization estab- 
lished to defy the law, the state authorities would 
have made renewed efforts to punish the offenders, 
and the federal administration would probably have 
interfered. While Terry was in prison, the legisla- 
ture of Texas, where he had formerly resided, ad- 
dressed a memorial to Congress, praying for action to 
protect him. Soon after his arrest application was 
made to Judge McAllister, of the United States cir- 
cuit court, for a writ of habeas corpus, but the old 
gentleman did not wish to provoke the animosity of 
the people among whom he made his home and he 
refused, thus committing a glaring violation of his 



256 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

official duty. The committee would probably have 
made no resistance, for they did not want to come 
into conflict with the federal authority, and they con- 
sidered themselves extremely fortunate when the 
judge would not issue the writ. Before the arrest of 
Terry a writ of habeas corpus issued by one of the 
justices of the state supreme court, was treated with 
a show of respect, though the prisoner was not sur- 
rendered. He was taken from the vigilance building 
secretly and concealed elsewhere, and when the officer 
came with the writ he was politely conducted through 
all the rooms and assured by the persons in charge 
that nobody was deprived of his liberty by them. 
The committee felt safe in evading the order of a 
state court which was not supported by popular opin- 
ion, but to defy the federal government would have 
been a far more serious matter. 

The general dissatisfaction among the members of 
the committee, with the discharge of Terry, was 
partly due to the prevalence of a rumor that he had 
boasted before going to the city that he would sweep 
the vigilantes into the bav; and although his en- 
counter with Hopkins had not occurred under circum- 
stances that permitted him to exercise his judicial 
authority, he had shown that he was not afraid to 
assume responsibility, or to defy the most serious 
danger. His release was regarded by some persons 
as giving power to the most formidable enemy of the 
reform movement. Terry's interference prolonged 
the existence of the organization. The executive 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 257 

committee had nearly finished all the work that ap- 
peared urgent to them, and they would probably have 
adopted a resolution for disbanding six weeks earlier 
than they did. 

Sec. 125. McGowan. The main object of the ex- 
ecutive committee was from the first, in the opinion 
of some members at least, to secure political justice; 
the administration of criminal justice was regarded as 
of secondary importance, and of value mainly in so far 
as it could be made serviceable to the more important 
purpose. Political swindlers, under the pretense of 
managing the city government, had robbed the prop- 
erty owners of millions upon millions, and the duty 
now most pressing was to deprive them of their power. 
But for this object, the committee would, perhaps, 
have dissolved within a couple of weeks after the exe- 
cution of Casey. Several ballot-box staffers (base and 
ignorant tools of cunning tricksters who devised the 
political frauds, and took their chief honors and prof- 
its,) confessed their crimes upon the ballot-box, and 
conveyed the idea that they had been guided by Ed- 
ward McGowan, who, having been accused of being 
an accomplice of Casey in the murder of King, had 
absconded. The committee made extraordinary efforts 
to get McGowan, gave him a close chase, and many 
narrow escapes, and sent parties after him by land and 
sea as far as Santa Barbara, but failed t<> catch him. 

Sec. 124. Hetherington and Brace. On the twenty- 
ninth of July, two months after the execution of ( 
and Cora, two other murderers, Joseph Hetherington 
17 



258 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and Philander Brace were hanged. The crime of the 
latter had been committed two years before, and he 
had been tried by a criminal court, and acquitted in 
defiance of reason. These four executions were the 
only ones ordered by the vigilance committee of 1856. 
In every case the prisoner was, in the general opinion 
of the community, undoubtedly guilty of a capital 
crime, was kept several days in custody by the com- 
mittee before execution, so as to avoid all danger from 
hasty action, was tried deliberately, and was executed 
by daylight, publicly, and in the presence of a multi- 
tude of quiet people; the entire proceeding being as 
orderly, solemn, and respectful to the feelings of the 
criminals and their friends as if the execution had 
been conducted by a sheriff under the order of a high 
constitutional court. 

Sec. 125. Disbandment. The executive committee 
were now T anxious to close their labors, which de- 
manded much of their time, endangered their prop- 
erty and lives (for their executions, though justifiable 
morally, were murders in the eye of the law), exposed 
them to animosities that injured them in business and 
discommoded them in their social relations, and sub- 
jected them to a severe pecuniary tax. The expense 
of the committee, amounting for part of the time to 
five hundred dollars a day, had to be paid by subscrip- 
tion of the members and sympathizers. The burdens, 
dangers and inconveniencies were willingly borne 
while the committee had an abundance of important 
work to do, but after they had been in session two 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 259 

months and a half they came to the conclusion that a 
longer maintenance of the organization would be of 
doubtful benefit. There was no prospect of getting 
any new light on the political frauds; it would not do 
to hang offenders on general principles (that is, with- 
out legal proof of capital crimes), though there was 
no lack of hot heads in the general committee de- 
manding such a course; and it would be folly to 
maintain the organization for the purpose of punishing 
the ordinary murders that might be committed in the 
future. 

Under the influence of such considerations, the 
executive committee, with the approval of the board 
of delegates, adopted a resolution to disband the 
forces. On the eighteenth of August the city took a 
general holiday to witness the celebration of the dis- 
banding of the vigilance committee, and thousands 
came from interior towns to see the men who had 
defied the law in the interest of justice and honesty 
for three months. The streets were bright with flasks 
and flowers; the sidewalks were lined with ladies in 
brilliant dresses along the line adopted by the proces- 
sion, or rather the army, which contained five thou- 
sand one hundred and thirty-seven men, including 
three artillery companies with eighteen pieces of can- 
non, twenty-nine members of the executive committee, 
two hundred and ninety dragoons, forty-nine surgeons 
and physicians, one hundred and fifty members of the 
committee of vigilance of 1851, vigilant police, hun- 
dreds of citizens on horseback, thirty-three companies 



260 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of the vigilant infantry, and numerous military bands. 
The troops were reviewed, and a farewell address was 
published by the executive committee, congratulating 
the general committee and the community on the val- 
uable service rendered, and promising that the organ- 
ization should be revived, if it were necessary, to 
protect its members against violence or malicious pros- 
ecution on account of the action of the committee, or 
to guard the purity of the ballot-box. It was never 
formally dissolved. 

Sec. 126. Work of the Committee. This was the 
end of the active work of the committee. There 
never was any necessity or demand for the resumption 
of its activity. Durkee was tried on a charge of 
piracy, for taking state arms consigned to the law and 
order forces from the schooner " Julia " in the bay, 
but was acquitted. Several suits for damages were 
commenced by the exiles, but in most cases the plaint- 
iffs did not recover enough to pay expenses. Though 
the committee was practically dissolved, its influence 
lived; its members and sympathizers, having the con- 
fidence and favor of the people, obtained control of 
the city government, held it for nearly twenty years, 
and established and maintained the best and most 
economical city government in the United States — 
the municipal administration where the spoils system 
had less power than anywhere else under American 
dominion. 

After the dissolution, many good citizens who had 
been opposed to the committe, partly because they 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 20 1 

feared that it would lead to great riots and reckless 
violence, expressed their satisfaction and surprise at 
the good results secured, and resumed their former 
relations of social friendship with the vigilance lead- 
ers. Others, however, cherished the bitterness against 
the committee, and after a lapse of twenty years some 
indications of it still crop out here and there. 

The vigilance committees of San Francisco in 1851 
and 1856 were in many important respects unlike any 
other extra-judicial movement to administer justice. 
They were not common mobs; they were organized 
for weeks or months of labor, deliberate in their 
movements, careful to keep records of their proceed- 
ings, strictly attentive to the rules of evidence and 
the penalties for crime accepted by civilized nations, 
confident of their power, and of their justification by 
public opinion, and not afraid of taking the public 
responsibility of their acts. 

Many mobs in Montana, Colorado, Nevada, and 
other sparsely settled parts of the United States, 
have assumed or received the name of "vigilance 
committee" thus made respectable in San Francisco, 
but not one was governed by similar principles. They 
have been simple mobs, which collected on the first 
impulse of popular excitement and executed an of- 
fender or several within half a day and then dis- 
persed; or if there was an organization to be main- 
tained more than a day, it was composed of a few 
members, bound to secrecy, and they seized and exe- 
cuted their prisoners when masked or at night. It 



262 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

would be grossly unjust to judge the San Francisco 
vigilance committee by the acts of any other organiza- 
tion with a similar name elsewhere. The Fehm- 
Gericht of Westphalia, and the Santa Hermandad of 
Spain, though maintained for a longer period as extra- 
judicial organizations to administer justice, were de- 
cidedly inferior in efficiency, and in the precautions to 
prevent errors arising from haste or secrecy of pro- 
cedure. 

The two San Francisco committees pursued the 
same system. It was entirely original, the out- 
growth of the local circumstances, and the best 
remedy in the judgment of many good citizens for 
public evils which had become intolerable. In 1851, 
as in 1856, quiet men said either they or the scoun- 
drels must leave San Francisco. The main work in 
the former year was to punish convicts from Austra- 
lia; in the latter it was to correct the abuses intro- 
duced by political tricksters from eastern cities. 
Each committee executed four men; each banished 
several scores; both were highly successful and earned 
an honorable place in history. 

Sec. 127. Peoples Party. On the approach of 
the first city election held after the organization of 
the vigilance committee, a mass meeting called by 
some of its members appointed a convention of twenty- 
one respectable and prominent citizens to nominate 
candidates for the city offices. This convention se- 
lected its nominees from men who had been members 
of the committee, or sympathizers with it. The gen- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 263 

eral of the vigilance army was selected for sheriff; the 
marshal of the vigilance police, for chief of the city 
police. The nominees as a class were far superior in 
business capacity and moral character to the previous 
city officials. The ticket included northern and south- 
ern men, republicans, democrats, and know-nothings, 
jews, catholics, and protestants. It deserved and 
commanded public confidence, and was elected. 

The new administration was a marvel of economy. 
The expenses of the city and county had been two 
millions six hundred and forty-six thousand dollars in 
1855, and in 1857 they were only three hundred and 
fifty-three thousand dollars. Much of this saving- 
was due to the consolidation act adopted by the legis- 
lature in April, 1856; but a large part of it to the new 
officials. There w T as no doubt that the spirit of the 
administration was different from that of any of its 
predecessors. There was an entire absence of the 
partisan trickery, low scheming, and disreputable per- 
sonal association common about the city hall in pre- 
vious years. The general opinion of the men recog- 
nized as persons of influence in the city government 
demanded zealous devotion to the public interests in 
all the officials. Something of the reduction of ex- 
penditures was secured by cutting off needful supplies. 
Although there was a considerable increase in the 
number of school children every year, yet the average 
attendance in the public schools was four hundred 
less in 1857 than in 185G; so many children were ex- 
cluded from the public schools for the purpose of re- 



264 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

clucing expenditures. In the street department, a 
great saving was made by stopping the work of grad- 
ing, sewering and planking. The use of gas in the 
street lamps was stopped for a time, and when re- 
sumed, the quantity burned was smaller than before. 
These economies caused some inconvenience to the 
citizens, but they were delighted with the large reduc- 
tion of taxes; the more so on account of the general 
depression under which mercantile business and real 
estate had suffered for several years. 

When the time for the election came in 1858, sev- 
eral thousand citizens signed a petition requesting the 
nominating convention of 1857 to appoint a new con- 
vention for the people's party, and it did so. The 
new organization resolved that none of its own mem- 
bers, and none of the members of the preceding con- 
vention should be nominated; that solicitation for a 
nomination by the candidate in person should be con- 
sidered an objection; that it was desirable that those 
officials who had performed their duties in a satis- 
factory manner should be retained; and that the 
nominations should be kept as independent as possible 
of national parties. The ticket was worthy of these 
prudent rules, and was elected by the people. With 
some minor changes and slight interruptions, this in- 
dependent city party had control of the government 
until 1874, a period of eighteen years. 

The method of nomination was always substantially 
the same. A convention, the list of which had been 
prepared beforehand by a few persons, was submitted 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 2G5 

to a public meeting which had been called without 
notice of its main purpose, the names of the members 
of this convention submitted in a lump, without time 
for consideration, without an opportunity to reject or 
accept each individual by a separate vote, or to decide 
whether some other person would be preferred, was 
the foundation of all the subsequent nominations, and 
was the only people's party nominating convention 
that was ever submitted to any kind of a popular 
vote. There were no primary elections, no ward 
meetings, none of the trickery of professional politi- 
cians. 

Yet this system of obtaining nominating commit- 
tees, so different from that customary in American 
politics, and defiant of the common rule that the nom- 
inating conventions must be selected every year at 
a public meeting or primary election open to every 
member of the party, was doubtless one of the causes 
of the success of the people's party. Lacking the 
element of popular participation, the leading men of 
the party understood that the nominating convention 
must be composed of men occupying reputable posi- 
tions in business and society. They were so composed, 
and they commanded the confidence of the public, 
whereas the democratic and republican conventions 
included many ruffians and men without property or 
reputable occupation. 11. H. Dana, jr., a lawyer and 
statesman of high ability and strict veracity, haying 
visited California in 1859, when the acts of the com- 
mittee were fresh in the minds of the people, and its 



266 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

influence over the municipal administration dominant, 
wrote thus: 

And now the most quiet and well-governed city in the United 
States. But it has been through its season of heaven-defying 
crime, violence and blood, from which it was rescued and 
handed back to soberness, morality and good goverment by that 
peculiar invention of Anglo-Saxon republican America, the sol- 
emn, awe-inspiring vigilance committee of the most grave aud 
responsible citizens, the last resort of the thinking and the 
good, taken only when vice, fraud and ruffianism have en- 
trenched themselves behind the forms of law, suffrage and 
ballot. 

Sec. 128. 1857. As compared with the preced- 
ing eight years, 1857 in San Francisco was quiet and 
dull. There was no remarkable mining excitement; 
no great speculation or panic in business; no great 
crime against life or property; no revolt of the people 
against their rulers. The city government, installed 
by the people's party, was extremely economical. 
Thieves and murderers stayed away for fear that the 
vigilance committee might resume power. Business 
continued to suffer under the depression that began 
three years before. Broderick having secured a ma- 
jority of the members of the legislature in the state 
election of 1856, in January took the prize of the 
federal senatorship, and then holding the power, gave 
the other senatorship to Dr. Gwin. 

Some adventurers from the city joined Crabb's 
party, which started on the twenty-first of January, 
to conquer Sonora, and perished with it. The claim 
of Santillan for several thousands of acres of land be- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 2G7 

tween California street and Mission creek, was con- 
firmed by the United States district court in April, 
but the decision was not final, and general confidence 
was felt that it would be finally overthrown. The 
first savings bank was opened with success from the 
start, and the first industrial fair of the Mechanics' 
Institute was held in a building erected for the pur- 
pose on the site now occupied by the Lick House. 
The greater part of the state debt having been de- 
clared unconstitutional by the state supreme court, 
was ratified at the election in September, by the peo- 
ple who thus accepted the legal responsibility for its 
payment, and did much to strengthen the credit of 
the state at home and abroad. 

The sinking of the " Central America," in Septem- 
ber, off the coast of Florida, on her way to New 
York, with passengers and treasure from California, 
was one of the notable events of the year. The 
steamer having sprung a leak in a fearful hurricane, the 
water rose slowly for thirty-three hours, until she sank. 
At three o'clock in the afternoon of the second day, 
when it had become evident that she must go down 
before the next morning, a brig, which had suffered 
in the storm, came near and offered to receive the 
passengers; but as she was not very manageable, or 
near, the sea was rough, and the only conveyances 
were three small boats, the transfer went slowly. 
When night came on all the twenty-six women and 
twenty-seven children, besides four adult male pas- 
sengers, had reached the brig, leaving more than five 



268 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

hundred men behind to what appeared almost inevit- 
able death. Though many were armed and nearly all 
were rough in appearance, they were content that the 
women and children should be saved first; and if here 
and there a grumble was heard, it received little en- 
couragement. Never did so many men face death 
near at hand more quietly or decorously. About 
eight o'clock in the evening the ill-fated steamer gave 
a final plunge and disappeared forever, carrying down 
with her into the vortex of the sea many of her pas- 
sengers, and leaving others afloat, supported by life- 
preservers or pieces of wood from the wreck. Of 
these, more than one hundred were picked up the next 
day, out of five hundred and eighty-two persons on 
board, four hundred and nineteen were drowned. A 
commercial panic caused or greatly intensified in the 
Atlantic states by the loss of one million five hundred 
thousand dollars in gold dust with the steamer, was a 
startling proof of the dependence of the business of 
the nation on the mines of California. 

Sec. 129. Crabb. Walker was not the last Cali- 
fornian to undertake a quixotic conquest in Spanish- 
America. Henry A. Crabb, a resident of Stockton, 
a prominent man in the whig party of California, a 
lawyer and public speaker of decided ability, an offi- 
cial of experience and good repute, and an ardent 
advocate of slavery, was the husband of a lady who 
had been born in the state of Sonora, and had rela- 
tives still living there. It was through the relatives 
of his wife that he received an invitation from a de- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 2G0 

feated chieftain in that state to bring an armed force 
for the purpose of overthrowing Governor Gandara, 
who had long been master there. He accepted the 
invitation, collected a force of one hundred men, on 
the twenty-first of January sailed from San Francisco 
to San Pedro and thence marched to Sonora, where 
he was met near the line, attacked, defeated, and com- 
pelled to surrender at discretion, after twenty-five of 
his men had been killed in battle. He and fifty-eight 
companions were promptly executed. Nearly a hun- 
dred men who were on their way to aid him heard of 
the catastrophe before reaching Sonora. Those natives 
of that state who had invited him made no attempt to 
assist him. They expected that he would appear with 
a much larger force, and said it was useless for them 
to come out openly in his favor when there was no 
hope of success. The disasters and tragical deaths 
of Raousset, Walker and Crabb were serious discour- 
agements to filibustering, and twenty years have now 
gone by without any new enterprises of that kind. 

Sec. 130. 185S. The most notable feature of 
1858, in the history of the city and state, was the 
Fraser fever, of which more will be said in a subse- 
quent section. An overland mail, connecting San 
Francisco with St. Louis, by the southern route 
through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, was estab- 
lisheg in September; and though the time from New 
York was not less than by Panama, yet the mail had 
the great advantage of being semi-weekly, wher< 
the steamer mail came only once in a fortnight. 



270 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Water was brought into the city in an aqueduct from 
Lobos creek, and was carried round in carts until 
pipes could be laid. As they were supplied, the carts 
upon which the city had previously depended gradu- 
ally disappeared. At the election in September the 
slavery extension wing of the democracy elected 
more than two thirds of the legislature. The docu- 
ment submitted to the courts by Limantour as a grant 
for about six thousand acres within the limits of the 
city was proved to be a forgery, and the claim was 
finally defeated. The privilege of collecting tolls on 
the Mission and Folsom street plank-roads having 
expired, the roads became free. The fare on the 
ferry-boat to Oakland previously fifty cents, was re- 
duced to twenty-five cents; and the construction of 
the San Bruno turnpike gave a new and nearly level 
road much of the way along the shore of the bay 
from the Mission to the plain of San Mateo, offering 
the first pleasant drive on the peninsula in the vicin- 
ity of the city and outside of its limits. 

The supreme court was subjected to much ridicule 
on account of a decision in the case of the negro 
Archy, brought as a slave to California from Alabama 
by Mr. Stovall, who supposed the negro would follow 
and obey him anywhere. Archy used his freedom; 
the master applied to the supreme court, and P. H. 
Burnett, the chief justice, rendered his opinion that 
the applicant was not entitled to the custody of 
Archy under the law, but as Stovall " was a young 
man traveling mainly for his health," and the court 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 271 

was " not disposed to rigidly enforce the rule for the 
first time," therefore he might take Archy; but fair 
notice was given in the opinion that in all future 
cases, the court would decide the other way. " The 
law was given to the north and the nigger to the 
south." Joseph Baldwin, who succeeded Burnett as 
chief justice, prepared a syllabus of the decision, in- 
ferring that the constitution does not apply to young 
men traveling for their health; that it does not apply 
the first time; and that the decisions of the supreme 
court are not to be taken as precedents. Ludicrous as 
this decision was when considered from a legal stand- 
point, and lamentable in its disregard of personal right 
and public policy, it was written by a man who had 
previously been the governor of the state, and has 
since been the president of a bank in San Francisco; 
and perhaps no man in California has a higher reputa- 
tion for kindliness and integrity. His blunder is an 
example of the great wrong that may result from con- 
fused logic combined with amiable weakness, if such 
name could properly be given to a motive in which 
there was no malice, and more regard for the claims 
of one class than for the rights of another. 

Sec. 131. Mining Excitements. Regions contain- 
ing extensive placer mines are peculiarly subject to 
sudden migrations of the miners to districts reported 
to be richer. The more abundant the gold, the more 
unsettled the population. They who are doing well, 
instead of being attached by their prosperity to their 
claims, are the more ready to move because they have 



272 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

money to spare. They will not wait till the value of 
the new diggings has been conclusively proved, for 
fear that before such proof can be furnished all or 
nearly all the best claims have been taken up, and 
then the discovery would be of no benefit to them. 
They would abandon a good claim for the chance of 
getting a better one. Such conduct may appear in- 
comprehensible to men who have never seen a placer 
mining community, but it was common among the 
gold hunters of California before 1860. They did not 
understand the geological laws under which gold was 
distributed through the gravel beds of living or dead 
rivers, and they had seen such wonderful deposits of 
it, and many of them were so ignorant that no rumor 
of its abundance seemed incredible to them. There 
were many intelligent and prudent men among them, 
but these could not prevent the others from being car- 
ried away by excitements. 

Many of the reported new discoveries which at- 
tracted hundreds or even thousands of adventurers 
from gold diggings, and never paid them for their 
trouble, were on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada and 
were reached by the miners without passing through 
San Francisco, and the influence of the excitement in 
such case was scarcely felt here. 

The first rush that affected the city was that to 
Gold Bluff on the beach of Humboldt county, in 
January, 1851. The secretary of a mining company, 
which had a claim there (and hundreds of others 
equally good could be taken up), published a state- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 273 

ment that according to the representation of persons 
who had examined the ground, it would yield four 
hundred and thirty million dollars to each member of 
the company. On the eleventh of January eight 
vessels were advertised to sail for Gold Bluff, but 
before they departed, the exaggerations were exposed, 
the applicants for passage drew back, and the mem- 
bers of the millionaire company never received a cent 
of dividend from their claims. 

Three years later wonderful stories were published 
in the Panama journals about rich placers on the 
head waters of the Amazon in eastern Peru, and one 
thousand adventurers from California were astonished 
on landing at Callao to find that nobody there knew 
anything of such mines. Several parties having come 
so far, thought they might as well do some prospect- 
ing on the eastern slope of the Andes, and after 
making the journey at great expense and trouble, 
they found nothing. 

In February and March, 1855, a number of letters 
full of falsehoods, about extensive and rich placers in 
the basin of Kern river were published in the Stock- 
ton and Los Angeles papers, and five thousand per- 
sons started for the new Eldorado. Many of them 
abandoned good claims or profitable employment, and 
ten thousand more were getting ready to follow very 
soon, when letters came back that there was not work 
for more than one hundred men. 

Sec. 132. Fraser Fever. These rushes were mere 
trifles, however, as compared with the Fraser fever, 

18 



274 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

which pre vailed from April till September, 1858. 
Gold had been found in the banks and bars of Eraser 
river in British Columbia, about one hundred miles 
from the ocean, and some sanguine miners there, sup- 
posing that there must be a large and rich placer 
mining region in the basin of the stream, converted 
their inferences into assertions in letters which were 
given to the public. Many thousands of the Cali- 
fornian miners, unwilling to adapt themselves to the 
relative impoverishment of the diggings of the Sierra 
Nevada, received with joyous credulity the rumors of 
great gold fields in what was then known to the law 
and to the map-makers as "New Caledonia." The 
first adventurers generally were men who had money 
enough to go to Eraser river, and return in comfort 
even if they should find nothing there; and they went 
as other parties have gone to examine every district 
reported to have much precious metal within the 
limits of our continent. Their reports were that 
there was no doubt of the existence of gold in the 
bars of the river, and that the stream was much 
larger than any of the rich Californian rivers, but 
that the water was too high to permit as yet of profit- 
able work in the bars or in the river bed, or even of 
any thorough prospecting. 

All this was true literally, and did not mean much 
directly, but most extravagant deductions were drawn 
from it, then accepted as a proper basis for action, 
and confirmed by the writers of sensational letters, 
some of whom may have been paid by the owners of 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 275 

the steamships, which reaped a rich harvest from the 
excitement. So great was the rush that California 
seemed in danger of being depopulated. The custom- 
house records say that between the twentieth of April 
and the ninth of August, the limits of the Fraser fever, 
fifteen thousand and eighty-eight passengers left San 
Francisco in one hundred and twelve vessels for the 
new Eldorado; but the " Prices Current," a carefully 
edited commercial journal, said the number of adven- 
turers was twenty- three thousand four hundred and 
twenty-eight, the reports to the custom-house being 
greatly below the truth in many cases. In the mid- 
dle of August only two thousand three hundred per- 
sons had returned. The twenty-three thousand five 
hundred who went to Fraser river were six in a 
hundred of the entire population of the state, a very 
large proportion to leave within four months; and 
they were relatively fifteen times as many as left the 
Atlantic slope for California in 1849, when the world 
was astonished at the magnitude of the migration, 
and when all the business relations of the country 
were disturbed. Not only did one in sixteen of the 
men in California start for Fraser river, but one third 
of the others were preparing to go when the folly of 
the excitement became clear to the common com- 
prehension. For a time, fears had prevailed that the 
state would be depopulated, and that San Francisco 
would be stationary for many years, while Victoria, 
the chief port of the gold mines of British America, 
would become the metropolis of the coast. Real es- 



276 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tate lost half its market value; lots on Montgomery 
street, between Bush and Sutter, were offered at two 
hundred dollars a front foot, and found no takers, 
though since in demand at eighteen hundred to two 
thousand dollars; and Blythe's gore, between Market 
and Geary, for which according to common report an 
offer of one million and a half dollars was rejected in 
1876, was considered dear at thirty thousand dollars. 
For several months California appeared to be on the 
verge of dissolution under the influence of the Fraser 
river. Some of the mining towns lost half their in- 
habitants. Placer claims that yielded ten dollars per 
day, net, to the man, were almost unsalable. Seats 
in the stages from the mining towns to Sacramento 
and Stockton were engaged for weeks in advance. 
Real estate fell in many places eighty per cent, in 
market value. In San Francisco, through which all 
the emigrants passed, and to which they paid a large 
tribute in many ways, there was a ruinous decline. 
Bankers, lawyers, wholesale merchants and real estate 
speculators began to make arrangements for transfer- 
ring their business to Victoria. The confident belief 
that New Caledonia would produce as much gold, and 
would be as lively in business as California had been 
in 1849, was extensive if not general; and to be in 
the midst of such another storm of gold dust would 
well be worth the sacrifice of a few thousand dollars. 
Before the middle of July, the credulous acceptance 
of the stories about the mineral wealth of the Fraser 
basin was seriously discredited by the failure to find 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 211 

any extensive diggings; early in August the excite- 
ment had become a subject of ridicule; and in Sep- 
tember the people wondered how they could ever have 
believed that there was any reason for an excitement. 
It was calculated that the adventurers who went to 
Fraser river lost nine million dollars in the aggregate, 
including sixty dollars fare, sixty days time and one 
hundred dollars for outfit and freight money for each 
man on an average. The estimate was probably ex- 
travagant for the direct loss, but the indirect loss was 
much greater, especially in the depreciation of prop- 
erty in the mining districts. San Francisco, however, 
gained far more than she lost. The panic which 
threatened her with disaster, and for a few months 
caused many serious losses to individuals, soon re- 
acted, and made busines more active than before. 
The Fraser fever was really a turning point in the 
fortunes of the city. The money wasted by the miners 
had gone into the pockets of San Franciscan owners 
of steamers, stages, hotels and supplies. Here the 
adventurers all stopped, purchased outfits and paid 
passage money to transportation companies. The 
shipping of the port, which had been decreasing for 
five years, now began to increase. The report of the 
excitement attracted many people from the Atlantic 
states, and the gain of population by sea was thirteen 
thousand, whereas it had been only five thousand 
annually, on an average, for the three preceding years. 
The temporary decline in city lots caused severe loss 
to individuals, but there was an equal profit for others; 



278 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and as the disappointed miners generally declared 
when they got back, many of them having in the 
mean time traveled through the basins of the Colum- 
bia and Frazer rivers and Puget sound, that they 
would never leave California again, whatever mines 
might be discovered at a distance — these were the 
men who called this " God's country " — there was a 
heightened feeling of confidence in the permanent 
prosperity of the state. Before the end of the year, 
real estate in San Francisco was in more demand than 
it had been since 1855. 

Sec. 133. 1859. The large increase in the pro- 
duction of wheat and wool, the extensive plantings of 
fruit trees and vines, the conviction, now taking strong 
hold of the public mind, that California had wonder- 
ful resources for agriculture, especially in its horticul- 
tural department, and a growing disposition on the 
part of many of the people to regard the state as a 
desirable place for permanent homes, contributed in 
1859 to strengthen the era of prosperity that had its 
beginning in the previous year. The settlement of 
the titles of many large Mexican ranchos, and the 
belief that all the large claims to land in the city or 
its settled districts would be defeated, had favorable 
influences. Land rose in value, and building again 
became active. The Hayes tract of one hundred and 
fifty acres, south of Turk street and west of Lark in, 
including Hayes Valley, was sold at auction, bringing 
about one hundred and fifty dollars on an average for 
lots twenty-five feet in front by one hundred and ten 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 279 

feet deep. Several manufacturing establishments 
were erected, including a woolen mill and a glass fac- 
tory. The steam-paddy, which had been idle for six 
years, resumed work. Foreign coin was thrown out 
by the banks, thus excluding" it from common cir- 
culation. The first reports of the discovery of the 
silver deposits of the Comstock lode were published 
in the summer, and before the end of the winter, 
forty tons of the ore, worked at San Francisco, 
had yielded one hundred thousand dollars net, after 
paying five hundred dollars per ton for transpor- 
tation and reduction. The political campaign of the 
year was very bitter. The people at the polls, by a 
large majority condemned the conduct of Mr. Brod- 
erick as senator, and a few days later he was mortally 
wounded in a duel. 

Sec. 134. Early Politics. There had been no 
organization of political parties in California before 
its admission into the Union. But most of the citi- 
zens had brought with them from the East their old 
partisan opinions and prejudices, and were ready to 
unite or divide on party lines whenever opportunity 
should occur. The two national parties at that time 
were, in California at least, nearly agreed upon most 
of the questions which had agitated the country for 
ten years before, save the extension of slavery; and 
even in reference to that, the difference was under- 
stood rather than explicitly defined. Its most ardent 
advocates were all democrats; its most active oppon- 
ents, as a class, were whigs. Because of the pro- 



280 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

hibition of slavery in her constitution, the admission 
of California had been resisted by the democrats in 
Congress, and thus the people of the state were much 
offended, and driven towards the whig- party, whose 
representatives had been the steadfast friends of the 
new state, and to whose support she mainly owed her 
triumph over the slavery men. But the favor which 
the Avhig party gained on account of democratic hos- 
tility to the admission of California, was more than 
counterbalanced by the blunders of the whig admin- 
istration in its treatment of her. Congress, absorbed 
with slavery and questions incidental to it, neglected 
the new state, which, on account of rapid growth, 
needed great attention. President Fillmore recom- 
mended the taxation of the mines, and thus irritated 
her people. The chief federal officials instead of be- 
ing selected from the old residents, were strangers 
sent out to take the honors and profits after others 
had faced the danger and done the work of pioneer 
life; and these " carpet-bag politicians," as their class 
was afterwards called, proved themselves in many 
cases incompetent and corrupt. 

Thus it was that in all legislatures and in most of 
the counties, until the middle of 1854, the democrats 
had the majority. In 1851 they elected to the gov- 
ernorship John Bigler, a man who had neither the 
capacity, the education, nor the manners to grace the 
position. But as a good fellow with the multitude, 
he was an available candidate. The better democrats 
were ashamed of him, and especially the southern 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 281 

men, who could not pardon his coarseness, though 
they could have overlooked the unscrupulous manner 
in which he abused his official power for the benefit 
of his political friends. It was necessary that there 
should be a contention in the party for its control, 
and it divided into two nearly equal factions; the 
chivalry, or men from the slave states, in one, and the 
Tammany, or foreigners and natives of the free states, 
in the other. The line of separation was not dis- 
tinctly drawn; that is, there was no authoritative 
declaration of principles on either side, but a strong 
antagonism had broken out so early as 1852. 

Sec. 135. BrodericL Among the pioneer citizens 
of California who arrived in 1849 was David C. 
Broderick, then about thirty years old, who, though 
a native of the national capital, had spent most of his 
years in New York City, where he had kept an ale 
house, had been a member of a fire company, had 
learned that he could manage men, and had acquired 
such popularity with a considerable proportion of 
voters that he had been a candidate for congress. 
His defeat in a district in which his party had 
fifteen hundred majority, and the public criticisms 
upon his career and associations, contributed to dis- 
gust him with his position in New York, and he was 
glad when he saw the prospect of commencing life 
again in California. 

He made his home in San Francisco, and asram got 
into politics through the fire department. He was a 
leader in the organization of the first fire company, 



282 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

but he took care to avoid the mistake of putting him- 
self on a level with all his fellow members. Though 
his early education had been limited, he had given 
much time to reading, and not without profit to him- 
self. The reward soon came. He had been in San. 
Francisco but a few months when, with the help of 
the "boys" who had known him in New York, and his 
skill in partisan management, he was chosen state 
senator to represent the city. 

Neither lawyer, statesman, nor orator, he attracted 
little attention in the first session of the legislature, 
when an entire code of laws had to be enacted. It 
was observed, however, that he was versed in parlia- 
mentary law; he could well explain those matters 
with which he was familiar; all his knowledge was 
ready at his tongue's end whenever required, and he 
had a character that gave him authority, influence, 
and the promise of political preferment. Governor 
Burnett having resigned and having been succeeded 
by John McDougal, when the senate met in 1851 it 
had to elect a president, who thus became lieutenant- 
governor. Broderick was chosen for the place. 

That legislature had also to elect a senator of the 
United States, and Broderick wanted the office, but 
he had not yet enough influence. Other men were far 
better known and more popular, and among them were 
Fremont, John B. Weller, who had been a member 
of congress from Ohio, and others. While he did 
not succeed in getting the place, he was gratified by 
the failure of the legislature to agree — a result to 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 283 

which he contributed — and by the postponement of 
the election to the next year, thus giving him more 
time. He worked industriously, and not without 
effect, for though he had not been recognized as a 
candidate in 1851, in 1852 he gave John B. Weller a 
hard contest in the democratic caucus, and the latter 
did not triumph till the fifth ballot and then by only 
two majority. The defeat was a great disappointment 
to Mr. Broderick, but it gave him a high place in the 
party, and made him the head of its northern faction. 
Sec. 136. Hostility to Slavery. The first oppor- 
tunity for Mr. Broderick to show his hostility to the 
chivalry on a question relating to slavery was when a 
bill was introduced permitting southern men who had 
brought negroes as slaves to California before the ad- 
mission of the state, to take them back by force. 
Although the majority of his party were for this 
measure, he opposed it energetically, and when a bill 
was introduced to provide for the enforcement of labor 
contracts (the purpose being to encourage the import- 
ation of a large number of Chinamen under agreement 
to work for cheap labor), Broderick denounced it as 
a substitute for slavery, and contributed to its defeat. 
Notwithstanding his dislike of slavery, he was not dis- 
posed to leave the democratic party, which was 
the stronghold of the pro-slavery party. When 
in 1852, the democratic national convention, sub- 
mitting to the dictation of the fire eaters, adopted 
the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 
1799 as " one of the main foundations of their polit- 



284 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ical creed," and declared an intention "to carry them 
out in their obvious meaning and import," thus reject- 
ing President Madison's attempt made during the 
nullification excitement to show that they did not 
justify nullification and secession; — when in accord- 
ance with the spirit of that platform the Missouri 
compromise was repealed in 1854, opening all the ter- 
ritories to slavery; — and when in 1856 the national con- 
vention re-adopted the resolutions of 1798 and 1799, 
asserting for every state the right of judging for itself 
whether the federal constitution had been violated, 
and what should be the mode and measure of redress, 
thus pledging the national administration to permit 
secession; — when all these things were done in the 
interest of slavery, Mr. Broderick, whose position re- 
quired him to understand their purposes and tenden- 
cies, submitted to them quietly. 

At the presidential election of 1852, the state gave 
a majority of eight thousand, out of a total vote of 
eighty thousand, to Pierce, and thus the democratic 
character of California seemed to be well established 
at the first opportunity of taking part in a national 
political contest. The result was considered by Mr. 
Broderick as a promise that he should have the sen- 
atorship if he could get the control of the party organ- 
ization, and he devoted all his energies to that point. 

Sec. 137. Campaign of 1853. In the democratic 
state convention held in the spring of 1853 to nomi- 
nate a governor and state ticket, he proved his power. 
He was acknowledged by the representatives of the 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 285 

party as their leader, and by his influence John Big- 
ler, notwithstanding the opposition of the southern 
faction and the protest of San Francisco, where he 
was especially unpopular, was renominated. The 
elections returns gave a majority to Bigler, though it 
was a common opinion, and probably a correct one, 
that if an honest count had been made, he would have 
been defeated by not less than five thousand. The 
men in charge of several of the election precincts in 
San Francisco were professional ruffians and political 
swindlers, and if they did not commit frauds upon the 
ballot-box, it was not because their reputations were 
too good, or the precautions of the law to prevent 
abuses too careful and judicious. 

Mr. Broderick could look upon the election as a 
great triumph for himself; the executive officers of 
the state had been selected by him, the majority of 
the members of the legislature looked to him as their 
leader, and he was the chairman of the state demo- 
cratic committee which had charge of the general 
business of the party. The circumstances were full 
of promise for him. He was suspected of being the 
manager of serious election frauds in San Francisco; 
he was known to be the employer and protector of 
the ruffians who had taken charge of the ballot boxes, 
and he had given some needless offense to various in- 
fluential southern politicians; but lie now stood so 
high that he could have discarded his base supporters, 
conciliated the leaders of the adverse faction, and 
strengthened his influence in many ways. 



286 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 138. Hammond Denounced. But such a 
method of procedure was contrary to his tastes. He 
could be gentle in his demeanor towards his friends, 
and he owed much of his ascendency to his manners; 
but in political tactics it was his rule to completely 
crush the enemy who fell into his power. He tried 
the crushing process upon the chivalry men in fed- 
eral offices, and especially upon R. P. Hammond, col- 
lector of customs and a member of the Southern 
faction, who, disliking Bigler and Broderick, had re- 
fused to contribute personally or to assess his subordi- 
nates for the campaign funds. In November, 1853, 
two months after election, Mr. Broderick, as chairman 
of the state committee, issued a proclamation to the 
party, congratulating it upon the victory, and com- 
plaining that many of those who held federal offices 
under a democratic administration, and bound by the 
usages of the country to furnish the sinews of war, 
had refused to contribute in the late critical contest, 
and denouncing them as traitors. The following is 
an extract from this proclamation: 

We made the next appeal to the stipendiaries of the na- 
tional purse who owed their offices and ingots to the permission 
of the party in this state. "We had a peculiar right to look in 
that direction for relief. We had responded to the appeal of 
the first national election in our history by four electoral votes, 
and we felt entitled to expect that the influence and aid of the 
general administration would be cheerfully reciprocated by its 
agents here in fair requital for that profound pledge of our de- 
votion. W T e invoked the aid, therefore, of those who held ap- 
pointments under the government at Washington. But, except 
in a few honorable instances, our hopes were vain. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 287 

Sec. 139. Grab for Senatorship. Mr. Broderick 
supposed that this language would be approved by the 
party generally, and would greatly weaken, if it did 
not destroy the power of the chivalry leaders; but as 
they had both the federal senatorships — Weller, 
though a native of a free state, being in full harmonv 
with them — all of the federal offices, many of the 
county offices, and the devoted adherence of a large 
faction, the excommunication was generally regarded 
as a cause of discord which would seriously endanger 
the success of the party in the future. It failed to 
produce the effect upon which Mr. Broderick had cal- 
culated, and indeed it reacted and seriously damaged 
him. He had cherished a plan which he revealed to 
his friends so soon as the election returns assured him 
of the preponderance of his faction in the state admin- 
istration. The democrats had majorities in both 
houses of the legislature, and most of them were his 
friends. He proposed that a federal senator should 
be elected without delay for the term to commence 
March 4, 1855. Objections that such an election, a 
year before the time fixed by custom, would be highly 
unpopular as well as unlawful; that if the legislature 
meeting in January, 1854, could choose a senator for 
the term commencing in March, 1855, it could with 
equal right and propriety elect for the terms com- 
mencing in 1857, 1861, 1865, and so on indefinitely, 
thus robbing future legislatures of their rights; mid 
that the members of this legislature had not been 
selected with any reference to this question, and there- 



288 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

fore could not properly act upon it — all such objections 
were overruled by Mr. Broderick, who answered that 
custom was not good authority; that no statutory or 
constitutional provision fixed the time when the sena- 
torial election should be held; that the party might 
not have a majority in the next legislature, and that 
it is the rule of politics to take every prize within 
reach, leaving nothing to the enemy. A large pro- 
portion of the democratic members of the legislature 
accepted the ungenerous dictation of Mr. Broderick, 
and labored strenuously to bring on the senatorial 
election, but a few of the Tammany men refused to 
sacrifice themselves to gratify an unscrupulous leader, 
and these, with the southern democrats, whigs, and 
independents, defeated the scheme. They had one 
vote more than all those under Mr. Broderick's con- 
trol. 

The struofo-le to elect Mr. Broderick was not fin- 
ished in a day, or limited by a single vote, but it 
absorbed the attention of the legislature for two 
months, and had many serious accompaniments and 
consequences. One of the members of the legislature 
reported that J. C. Palmer, a banker friendly to the 
senatorial aspirant, had offered to pay him for his 
vote, and a trial for bribery followed. The evidence 
was conflicting, and the verdict acquittal; but the cus- 
tody of certain public funds was taken from the house 
of Palmer, Cook & Co. — a severe punishment in itself. 
The angry journalistic disputations about the propri- 
ety of then electing a senator, led to a duel between 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 289 

two editors, each prominent on his side; and C. A. 
Washburn received a troublesome bullet in his shoul- 
der from the rifle of his opponent, B. F. Washington. 
To prevent a second attempt to seize the senatorship 
before the proper time, the legislature at its next ses- 
sion passed an act prescribing the manner in which 
future elections should be held, reserving to the legis- 
lature, which should begin its session next before the 
commencement of the senatorial term, the privilege of 
making the selection. It was an official and appro- 
priate rebuke of a discreditable plot. 

Sec. 140. Chivalry Triumph. Complete as had 
been the control of Mr. Broderick over the majority 
of the democratic members of the legislature, the 
party was against him, and when a state convention 
met, a few months later, his faction was in a woeful 
minority. Rather than submit to the rule of his ene- 
mies, he managed affairs so that the convention di- 
vided into two conventions, each claiming to be the 
fair representative of the organization. The claim 
was honestly made on the chivalry side. The only 
officers to be elected by general vote of the state in 
that year were two congressmen, and there were three 
tickets in the field. The chivalry democrats obtained 
thirty-seven thousand votes, the whigs thirty-five 
thousand, and the Broderickites ten thousand. These 
figures looked like political destruction to the man 
who a few months before considered himself master of 
the state. 

But the whirligig of fickle fortune soon turned 

19 



290 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

again in his favor. In the year of 1854 the Mis- 
souri compromise, prohibiting slavery in the territories 
north of latitude 36° 30', was repealed at the demand 
of the slavery extensionists, and many of the whig 
leaders favored the repeal. This was the death-blow 
of the whig party, on the ruins of which rose the 
know-nothing party, whose main purposes were to ex- 
clude all foreign-born citizens from office, and to dis- 
courage immigration. 

The slaveholders complained that the rush of immi- 
grants occupied the territories, and thus prevented 
them from getting any benefit from their half owner- 
ship of the southern states in the public lands. Their 
dislike of foreigners shared by the chivalry faction of 
the democracy in California, made discord in the com- 
bination which had overwhelmed Mr. Broderick. 
Many of the northern democrats who had voted to 
punish him for his attempt to grab the unripe sen- 
atorship, were galled by the manner of the chivalry 
leaders towards them, and were unwilling to be used 
against the interests of free soil. The election of 1854 
had elevated Dr. Gwin to the dictatorship of the party. 
He was a southerner by birth, a politician of much 
experience, ability and tact, an industrious public 
servant, a hospitable entertainer, and a gentleman in 
his manners. His social position, his attractive home, 
the good character of his most intimate associates, 
and his refusal, perhaps his inability, to manage pri- 
maries, or personally employ ruffians or swindlers for 
service in conventions and elections, gave him a su- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 291 

periority in the estimation of many genteel people 
over Broderick. When the latter was overwhelmed 
by the election of 1854, Gwin was recognized as the 
master. He was the senior senator, and the head of 
the dominant faction. Inferior as a political orator, 
he was much superior as a party manager and influen- 
tial member of congress to his senatorial colleague, 
John B. Weller, who made no effort to control the fed- 
eral patronage. The two representatives in the lower 
house acknowledged the authority of Gwin, and no 
important federal appointment was made without his 
consent. 

Now, as on previous occasions, he used his power 
unwisely. He gave the best offices to ultra southern 
men. The democrats of northern birth could get 
nothing, unless they had southern principles and 
were hostile to Broderick; and even then the inferior 
men were preferred, and usually got only inferior 
places. No encouragement was to be given to the 
northern faction of the party. Under this policy the 
federal spoils in California were distributed, and the 
public buildings swarmed with men whose chief qual- 
ification for government service were their southern 
birth and advocacy of the extension of slavery. 

S. W. Inge, of Alabama, United States district at- 
torney, and Yolney E. Howard, of Texas, law agent of 
the United States in the land commission, had as mem- 
bers of congress in 1850 voted against the admission 
of California, because its territory was dedicated to 
freedom. Mr. Inge was succeeded by Mr. Delia 



292 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Torre, of South Carolina. The highest federal j udicial 
officer, appointed before Dr. Gwin obtained much 
power, was Judge Hoffman, a native of New York, 
who held his place during good behavior ; so he could 
not be removed, but another federal court was placed 
over him, with Judge McAllister, of Alabama, pre- 
siding. The custom-house, the chief field of federal 
patronage, swarmed w^ith southern men, and several 
years later was nicknamed " The Virginia Poorhouse," 
because of the multitude of penniless men belonging 
to noted families of the old dominion there provided 
with refuge. 

It was partly because of his sacrifice of the party 
to his southern feelings that Gwin was not re- 
elected senator by the legislature that began its 
session in January, 1855. Most of the democrats 
were devoted to him; but in violation of custom the 
minority refused to go into caucus, or to be governed 
by the majority, and the know-nothings and anti- 
Gwin democrats were strong enough to prevent a 
choice. It was a triumph for Broderick to prevent 
his rival from grasping the prize. 

Sec. 141. Know- Nothing Triumph. When the 
democratic state convention met in the spring of 1855, 
to nominate a full ticket of state executive officers, 
notwithstanding the dissatisfaction among the Irish- 
men, Germans and northern democrats with Gwin, 
the chivalry faction still had undoubtedly a large ma- 
jority of the party; but it had no manager of primaries 
equal to Broderick; no one so willing to make pecun- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 293 

iaiy sacrifices for the sake of success; no one for whom 
personal friends would so freely contribute their money. 
To the great astonishment of the general public, 
when the two factions came to vote on the nomina- 
tion for governor, they were about equally divided, 
neither having a majority. A squad of delegates 
from the northern end of the state had the balance 
of power, and would not decide till its leader had 
time to consider the situation. He took a walk dur- 
ing a recess of the convention with Mr. Broderick, 
and at the next vote the chivalry were defeated 
and Mr. Broderick was again the dictator of the 
party. This was too much for the chivalry; they 
had been overreached in the primaries, defeated in 
the state convention, and rather than submit would 
defeat the democratic ticket. Circumstances per- 
mitted them to do this conveniently. The whig party 
had disappeared, the republican organization w T as as 
yet in embryo, and the native American order a 
secret society, the nucleus of a national party, had 
run, like electricity, throughout the Union. The 
branch of it established in California struck out the 
hostility to Catholics, and thus deprived it of any 
sectarian character. The chivalry democrats went 
into the lodges in swarms, and J. N. Johnson, the 
know-nothing nominee for governor had a majority of 
nearly five thousand in a state where the previous 
year the democrats had a plurality of twelve thou- 
sand. 

Sec. 142. H. S. Foote. Again Broderick had 



294 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

been defeated before the people; again there was to 
be a senatorial election, and he had no chance. Again 
he was subjected to the ridicule of his enemies, and 
the complaint of pretended friends. However, he had 
the satisfaction of seeing that the know-nothings could 
not grasp the sena/torial prize, of which they consid- 
ered themselves secure. They had a majority of one, 
but that one was a man of decided free soil jDrinciples, 
and he refused to vote for the know-nothing nominee, 
Henry S. Foote, a native of Mississippi, an advocate 
of slavery extension, who, if rumor were true, had 
come to California on purpose to be elected senator. 
Thus it happened that again the senatorial election was 
defeated; again the state was left without complete 
representation in the federal senate; again Mr. Brod- 
erick could have a chance in a struggle at the prima- 
ries for the great prize of his life. 

Sec. 143. Chivalry in Discredit. He went to 
work industriously early in the spring of 1856 to get 
control of the county conventions, so that the legisla- 
tive candidates throughout the state should be pledged 
to his service. Circumstances turned strongly in his 
favor. The policy pursued by the chivalry leaders 
to defeat him in the previous year now reacted against 
them with strong effect. The know-nothings had 
been demoralized by their inability to elect a senator. 
They saw that they had not the elements for the 
maintenance of a national party, and letters from their 
friends in the eastern states said there was little hope 
for the new organization there. The foreign born 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 295 

voters, with the aid of the large class of Americans 
who appreciated the immense benefit of immigration 
to the country, together made up a majority of the 
votes. 

Having withdrawn in 1855 and given serious offense 
to the Irish and Germans, the chivalry leaders could 
not regain control of the party in the spring of 1856. 
As Broderick had been previously the chief enemy 
of the southern faction, so now, when that faction was 
overthrown, the power naturally fell into his hands. 
The prize seemed at last to have come within his 
reach. 

Sec. 144. Vigilantes against Broderick. But the 
kaleidoscope of fate had not yet exhausted its black 
pictures for him. It took another and a fearful turn 
in May, 1856. The rise of the vigilance committee 
was a rebuke to Mr. Broderick. Its main purpose 
and its most valuable results were to drive from power 
the tricksters by whose help he held control of the 
democratic organization in San Francisco. The city 
officials recently installed had been selected with his 
approval, and with special regard to the service they 
could render him. The vinlance committee, while it 
did not expel them from office, deprived them of in- 
fluence and disgraced them. The intelligence, the 
respectability and the weight of the city were with 
the committee. The adherents of Broderick had cap- 
tured most of the counties before the vigilance com- 
mittee broke out; and though that movement brought 
great discredit upon him in the opinion of the general 



296 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

public, yet it gave him strength among the managers 
of his party. It was regarded by them and their fol- 
lowers as an act of hostility to the democracy. Some 
chivalry leaders who disliked Mr. Broderick, by giv- 
ing their countenance to the committee, excluded 
themselves from the partisan councils and left the 
power to his followers. Thus it was that many of the 
nominations for the legislature — and they form a large 
part of a senatorial contest in California, as in other 
states of the Union — belonged to him. 

Sec. 145. Senator at Last. The popular election 
was not less favorable. The people were called upon 
to elect a president in 1856, and they had to choose 
between the democratic and republican candidates. 
Know-nothingism had sunk back into insignificance. 
The people were not ready to accept the republican 
doctrines; the democrats carried away the offices in 
California, as well as in some other free states, and 
their success implied the triumph of Mr. Broderick. 
There was now no question about his predominance in 
the party. Two senators were to be chosen, and before 
election by the legislature, were to be nominated by a 
caucus of the democratic members. No candidate 
had an absolute majority, but Broderick was much 
stronger than Gwin, Latham, or Weller (each had his 
adherents), and it was conceded that he must be nom- 
inated first, and could control the nomination of the 
other. He lacked three of a majority, and as he said 
he would prefer Latham to anybody else for his col- 
league, four Latham men voted for him in the caucus 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 297 

and gave him the nomination, expecting that their 
man would be nominated immediately afterwards. 

Sec. 146. Sale of Second Senator ship. This was 
a reasonable expectation; but when Mr. Broderick 
had gained his part of the spoils, he interrupted the 
proceedings. At his dictation, the caucus adjourned 
to give him time for intrigue. Having obtained the 
end of his great ambition, he ought to have been 
satisfied; but now that he had so much, he wanted 
more. The selection of the higher federal officials in 
California had been the privilege or perquisite of the 
senators, and Mr. Broderick wanted it all for himself. 
As the Tammany faction of the party had a majority 
in the legislature, custom demanded that it should 
select another of its members to- the other senator- 
ship, but that did not suit Mr. Broderick. The fac- 
tion, indeed, had few leaders whose election would 
have done credit to the state. Mr. Broderick's 
method of requiring complete submission repelled 
men of ability, who otherwise would willingly have 
worked with him. Besides, he wanted to impose 
humiliating conditions upon his colleague, and he 
could not propose them to any of his friends. 

Having been elected on the tenth of January, his 
first step was to send for Dr. Gwin, who, in compli- 
ance with the invitation, went to see him on that 
night. Of the conversation between these eminent 
politicians on this occasion we have no record, but we 
know that Dr. Gwin, having received what he con- 
sidered satisfactory assurauce that he should have 



298 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Mr. Broderick's support for the senatorship, addressed 
to him the folloAving letter, which, though evidently 
confidential, was afterwards published by the recipient 
and acknowledged to be correct by the author: 

Sacramento, January 10, 1857. 
Dear Sir: I am likely to be the victim of the unparalleled 
treachery of those who have been placed in power through my 
aid. The most potential portion of the federal patronage is in 
the hands of those who, by every principle that should govern 
men of honor, should be my supporters instead of enemies, and 
it is being used for my destruction. My participation in the 
distribution of this patronage has been the source of number- 
less slanders upon me, that have fastened a prejudice in the 
public mind against me, and have created enmities that have 
been destructive of my happiness and peace of mind for years. 
It has entailed untold evils upon me; and while in the senate, 
I will not recommend a single individual for appointment to 
office in this state. Provided I am elected, you shall have the 
exclusive control of this patronage, so far as I am concerned, 
and in its distribution I shall only ask that it may be used with 
magnanimity, and not for the advantage of those who have 
been our mutual enemies, and unwearied in their exertions to 
destroy us. This determination is unalterable; and in making 
this declaration I do not expect you to support me for that 
reason, or in any way to be governed by it. But as I have 
been betrayed by those who should have been my friends, I am 
powerless myself, and dependent on your magnanimity. 

W. M. Gwin. 

The pretext of disgust with federal patronage on 
account of the ingratitude of his appointees was per- 
haps the best excuse for making such a bargain. 
Many of those who had fawned upon him when he 
was master of the party, did the same to Mr. Brod- 
erick when he became the dictator, and the motive 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 299 

was no worse in one case than in the other. The cus- 
tom of the spoils doctrine requires that the official 
appointed by the influence of a patron should be his 
partisan, under obligations of fidelity to him. The 
men placed in office by Gwin were guilty of treason 
when they went over to his enemy. 

Sec. 147. Offer to Sell it Again. Mr. Broderick, 
not content with having such a letter from Dr. Gwin, 
the next evening, January 11, sent for Mr. Latham, 
and when they met expressed his preference for him 
as a colleague among all the senatorial aspirants, and 
offered the senatorship to him if he would promise not 
to interfere with the federal patronage. Mr. Latham 
said he had a few friends to whom he was under ob- 
ligations, and if he were senator he must recommend 
them for office. When Mr. Broderick learned their 
names, he said they were men who had not been his 
enemies, and he would join in the recommendation; 
and as they were thus agreed, he would like to have 
a written memorandum of the agreement, signed by 
Mr. Latham, promising that he would not try to in- 
fluence the federal patronage in California. Mr. 
Latham refused to put his name upon any such paper, 
and Broderick gave him to understand that he could 
not have the prize. 

What would have occurred if the signature had 
been given cannot now be known. It is evident that 
Broderick intended to play a trick upon Gwin or 
Latham, perhaps upon both. J. M. Estell, who was 
active in the negotiations as Brodurick's intimate 



300 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

friend and confidential adviser, said afterwards that if 
Latham had signed the document demanded, the two 
letters would have been produced in caucus to ruin the 
reputation and political influence of both Gwin and 
Latham. Other friends of Broderick are confident 
that he meant in good faith to to elect Latham, if 
they could agree upon the terms. 

Sec. 148. Reception of Gwiris Letter. On the 
evening of the twelfth the democratic caucus nomi- 
nated Dr. Gwin; the next day he was elected; and 
on the following day a letter addressed by him " to 
the people " was published. It was similar in its 
ideas and expressions to his letter of the tenth, ac- 
knowledging his indebtedness to Broderick for his 
election, and declaring that having been betrayed by 
those whom he had put in office, he should have 
nothing to do with the federal patronage. A politi- 
cal tempest followed the publication. The federal 
officers, who were all Gwin men, finding that they 
had been deserted, complained bitterly of their leader; 
the friends of Latham and Weller denounced the let- 
ter as a sale of the senatorship to the injury of men 
who were above base bargains; and the independent 
newspapers cited the transaction as proof of the depth 
of political corruption. All Dr. G win's protests that 
the renunciation of all claims upon the federal pat- 
ronage was written without any kind of a bargain, 
was in harmony with his declarations made freely to 
his friends before he expected any aid from Mr. 
Broderick, and was the reasonable results of a most 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 301 

humiliating and vexatious experience, were treated as 
unworthy of serious consideration, however plausible 
they might appear if looked at from his side only. 

To Broderick's great astonishment the people would 
not see the letter with his eyes. They blamed the 
seller of the senatorship more than the buyer. The 
transaction was held up as disgraceful to the nation, 
and as injurious to the democratic party; and if grave 
political considerations had not demanded the silence 
of the majority in the senate, both Gwin and Brod- 
erick would probably have been expelled. Some of 
Mr. G win's fellow-senators who had long been his in- 
timate friends, and who had systematically sought 
and followed his advice, were disposed, when they 
first heard of the affair, to turn their backs upon him, 
but they were assured that he submitted to the hu- 
miliation as the best thing that could be done for the 
party, and they finally accepted the explanation and 
received him as before, while they reserved their chief 
indignation for Mr. Broderick. 

Sec. 149. No Patronage to Broderick. That 
gentleman was not less astonished with his own chill- 
ing reception at Washington than he had been by the 
reception of Gwin's letter by the public in San Fran- 
cisco. President Buchanan, a warm personal friend 
of Mr. Gwin, regarded the exaction of the letter in 
the first place, and its publication afterwards, as two 
separate offenses, each discreditable to the govern- 
ment, and especially dangerous to the party at a time 
when it needed all its strength to meet the republican 



302 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

excitement which was carrying everything before it 
in the north, and threatening to soon overwhelm the 
democracy. As Mr. Broderick seemed to stand alone, 
the president thought he could safely treat him with 
neglect. 

Notwithstanding the coolness in the personal de- 
meanor of the president towards him, Mr. Broderick 
made out a list of the friends to whom he proposed 
to distribute the chief federal offices in California, 
filed the names in the appropriate departments, and 
mentioned them to the president and members of the 
cabinet, who took no notice of them. It was a mat- 
ter of notoriety that Mr. Gwin was in much higher 
favor personally than his colleague with the adminis- 
tration, and before long it began to appear that his 
advice was sought and followed in reference to polit- 
ical appointments. The control of the patronage was 
in the opinion of Mr. Broderick, if not the most valu- 
able attribute of his senatorship, at least essential to 
its dignity; without it he could not reward his friends, 
punish his enemies, or maintain his power. The loss 
of it was a bitter humiliation to him, and a great dis- 
appointment to his followers, who accused Gwin of 
violating his contract. The answer ' made to this by 
Gwin's friends was that he had not volunteered advice 
to the administration; but when solicited for inform- 
ation or his opinion, he had given it, in compliance 
with his duty. The accusation, if not the defense, 
implied the existence of a bargain. 

Sec. 150. Insult to Buchanan. When the ques- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 303 

tion of introducing slavery into Kansas came before 
the senate, Mr. Broderick took the side against the 
administration, and he could do that without exposing 
himself to the charge of treason to the party, for he had 
the example and protection of Senator Douglas, by 
many considered the ablest politician of the country, 
and of excellent standing in the organization. Presi- 
dent Buchanan claimed that the laws of the United 
States carried slavery with them into the territories, 
and that it could not be excluded until after the state 
had been admitted into the Union. Douglas argued 
that the territorial legislature could prohibit it. He 
called the doctrine " popular sovereignty," a title well 
designed to catch the favor of the people. So far 
from sacrificing such popularity as he had in Cali- 
fornia, Mr. Broderick really added much to it, by 
adopting that doctrine, and yet by so doing he 
wounded Mr. Buchanan and the pro-slavery democrats 
in a most tender point, for every defection from the 
administration strengthened the frenzy of the great 
northern party, which was determined that the exten- 
sion of slavery should stop. It is highly probable 
that if even if Mr. Broderick had been on the best 
terms with the administration, he would have adopted 
Douglas's views upon the legal rights of the slave- 
holders in the territories, for the slave party in Cali- 
fornia had long been and were still his bitter enemies; 
and his sympathies derived from northern associations 
in favor of freedom were strengthened by the inter- 
ests of his personal ambition and the animosities of 
his political quarrels. 



304 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

His control over a majority of the democrats in the 
legislature of 1854 had been followed within a few 
months by the overwhelming triumph of the chivalry, 
and events took a similar course in 1857. The state 
convention which met in June, was under the con- 
trol of his enemies, and so was the legislature chosen 
in that year, as well as in the next one. The major- 
ity of the people were democrats, but they did not 
recognize Mr. Broderick as a true representative. In 
1859 the democratic legislature adopted resolutions 
denouncing, as a disgrace to the nation, the language 
used by him in the United States senate when he 
said that the policy of the administration towards 
Kansas should be ascribed to "the fading intellect, 
the petulant passion, and the trembling dotage of an 
old man on the verge of the grave." This studied 
insult wounded the feelings of the president, violated 
the proprieties of parliamentary debate, and was with- 
out foundation in fact. Mr. Buchanan was doubtless 
wrong, at least the people have since decided that he 
Avas, but his error was that of his party, and, it may 
be said, that of his country, for his policy towards 
Kansas was nothing more than the legitimate devel- 
opment of the course pursued by the democratic lead- 
ers and approved by the party in the two preceding 
presidential elections. He was gentlemanly in his 
manners, upright in his official position, and entitled 
to respect in his errors of judgment. On no other 
occasion has the legislature of California complained 
that the state had been disgraced by one of its sen- 
ators. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 305 

Sec. 151. Campaign of 1859. The democrats had 
now divided into two wings, the Lecompton, Buchan- 
an or pro-slavery on one side, and the anti-Lecomp- 
ton, Douglas or popular sovereignty faction on the 
other. Each nominated its ticket, and the republi- 
cans had theirs also, so there were three tickets in 
the field. The campaign was bitter; Broderick, for 
the first time in his life, made speeches before mass 
meetings, and in these spoke abusively of Gwin, 
accusing him of having been bribed by the Pacific 
Mail company, and by the owners of Lime Point, on 
the northern shore of the Golden Gate (they de- 
manded and came near getting an outrageous price for 
a piece of land valuable only for military purposes), 
and denouncing his " utter worthlessness of character," 
his " unreliability of word," and his " sneaking man- 
ner of acting " He also claimed that a letter had 
been stolen from him by the connivance of Latham. 
Both gentlemen denied these accusations, and repaid 
them with interest. Latham declared that Broderick's 
speeches were written for him, and that he had not 
ability to make one of his own. Gwin said that Brod- 
erick intended to use his senatorial power to compen- 
sate his friends for money loaned to him. Before the 
day of election a fusion was agreed upon between the 
leading republicans and anti-Lecomptonites as to the 
candidates for congress, so that instead of two anti- 
administration tickets, with two congressional candi- 
dates on each, there was only one, so far as congress 
was concerned, with one candidate for each party. 

20 



306 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Even this did not avail. The Lecomptonites elected 
their congressmen, as well as their governor. Thus 
Broderick was again rejected by the people. 

And now came the tragic end of his checkered 
career. In June, David S. Terry, chief justice of the 
sapreme court of the state, in a speech to a conven- 
tion before which he was a candidate for renomina- 
tion, said that Broderick's claim of having followed 
the lead of Douglas, needed the explanation that it was 
the lead, not of Stephen A. Douglas, the statesman, 
but of Frederick Douglass, the mulatto. Broderick was 
at the breakfast-table in the International Hotel 
when he read the report of this speech, and speaking 
to a friend so loud that others could hear, said he had 
spoken of Terry as the only honest man on the bench, 
but now he took it back. D. W. Perley, a friend of 
Terry, happening to be present, spoke up showing his 
intention to take Broderick's remark seriously, left 
the table, where some ladies were seated, and soon 
afterwards sent a challenge. Broderick refused to 
accept it, and in a note to the challenger, said he 
could not fight with an alien — Perley was a British 
subject — who had no political rights to be affected by 
taking part in a duel, and then added the following : 

For many years, and up to the time of my elevation to the 
position that I now occupy, it was well known that I would not 
have avoided any issue of the character proposed. If compelled 
to accept a challenge it could only be with a gentleman holding 
a position equally elevated and responsible; and tbere are no 
circumstances which could induce me even to do this during 
the pendency of the present canvass. When I authorized the 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 307 

announcement that I would address the people of California 
during the campaign, it was suggested that efforts would be 
made to force me into difficulties, and I determined to take no 
notice of attacks from any source during the canvass. If I were 
to accept your challenge, there are probably many other gen- 
tlemen who would seek similar opportunities for hostile meet- 
ings, for the purpose of accomplishing a political object or to 
obtain public notoriety. I cannot afford, at the present time 
to descend to a violation of the constitution and the state laws 
to subserve either their or your purposes. 

The note was one that could not be justified by 
any code. The penalties affixed to duelling in the 
laws of California, never having been enforced, were 
practically void; and the principle that the rights of 
gentlemen were limited by citizenship had never been 
accepted. The challenge might with entire propriety 
have been refused on the ground that the remark 
about Terry was none of Mr. Perley's business; and 
when it was declined there was no need of inserting 
the indirect invitation for a challenge from a gentle- 
man holding a position equally elevated and respon- 
sible. 

Sec. 152. Deadly Duel. Mr. Broderick did not 
write thus without a purpose, which was "to kill old 
Gwin," as he freely expressed it in conversation. 
"When he suggested his desire to fight with a gentle- 
man holding a position equally elevated and responsi- 
ble, he thought only of his senatorial colleague, who 
might choose between shunning a duel and facing a 
practiced pistol. But Mr. Broderick was caught in 
his own trap. David S. Terry was not the man to 
abandon his friend Perley or to let Gwin assume his 



308 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

quarrel. As he could not fight a duel while on the 
bench without violating his oath of office, he resigned 
on the day after the election and immediately sent the 
challenge. Broderick was astonished and chagrined. 
Without any thought of Terry he had invited his 
challenge. The remark made at the breakfast table 
was a serious public insult; the letter to Perley was 
a declaration that he was ready to accept a challenge 
from a high official. No excuse could be found in 
Terry's character or position for avoiding his polite 
invitation to slaughter. Instead, however, of giving 
a simple acceptance, he explained that when com- 
menting on Terry's speech he said that " during Judge 
Terry's incarceration by the vigilance committee, I 
paid two hundred dollars a week to support a news- 
paper in his defense." This attempt to conciliate 
Terry failed, for it was never a rule in "the code of 
honor" that a favor at one time was a justification 
for an insult at another, but the assertion itself was 
untrue, for though Broderick and his friends did 
maintain a newspaper while Terry was incarcerated, 
yet it was not supported for the purpose of defending 
Terry. Its defense of him was merely an incident of 
its general policy of hostility to the vigilance com- 
mittee. 

The duel was fought in San Mateo county, ten 
miles from San Francisco, on the thirteenth of Sep- 
tember, with dueling pistols, at a distance of ten 
yards. Both men were excellent marksmen, familiar 
with the weapons and brave ; but Broderick, suffering 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 309 

with diarrhea and the piles, was nervous, while Terry 
was cool. When the signal was given, both began 
instantly to raise their pistols, but before Broderick 
had brought his near to a level his finger pressed the 
trigger, and his bullet struck the ground near the feet 
of his enemy who fired a second later, the ball striking 
the right breast and passing into the left lung, where 
it lodged. Terry was so cool that he saw the dust 
fly and the cloth bend under the bullet. He immedi- 
ately said, " The shot is not mortal; I have struck two 
inches to the right." Broderick lingered for five days, 
much of the time under the influence of narcotics, 
given to protect him against the acute pain of his 
wound. It was reported that while upon his death- 
bed he said, " They have killed me because I was op- 
posed to the extension of slavery and a corrupt admin- 
istration;" but he said nothing: of the kind. 

Sec. 153. Conversion into a Hero. After his death 
Broderick was converted into a hero. The general 
sentiment in San Francisco, especially among the most 
intelligent men, was strongly adverse to Buchanan's 
administration, and a political purpose w T as to be 
gained by treating him as a martyr to the cause of 
liberty. To praise the dead senator was an excellent 
bait for his followers. Thus in the city where Brod- 
erick while alive was generally regarded as an un- 
scrupulous politician, after his death he was praised 
as the greatest of her citizens. In Lone Mountain 
cemetery his tomb has the best place, and his monu- 
ment is the most prominent and is the only one there 



310 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

to which the state contributed funds, and in laying the 
corner-stone of which a governor participated. The 
funeral of Broderick was one of the most imposing 
public demonstrations ever seen in San Francisco, and 
E. D. Baker delivered an eloquent oration on the 
occasion. 

Sec. 154. Trading Capital. Mr. Broderick's res- 
idence in San Francisco was a source of great political 
strength to him. The majority of the ward politi- 
cians of the city were from New York, and they 
recognized him as their leader. Through them he 
controled the democratic conventions from 1851 to 
1856 inclusive. He did not dictate all the nomina- 
tions, but they were generally submitted to him and 
accepted by him before they were formally announced. 
He allowed considerable liberty of action to his fol- 
lowers, so long as they did nothing to obstruct his 
plans. As he had control of the city and state 
offices in the city so long as the democrats had power, 
all the ruffians who wanted to make money out of 
politics on the Tammany side, sought his favor, and 
were ready to do what they suj^posed would please 
him. They were the friends of his friends and the 
enemies of his enemies. Whoever in that class had 
taken his money and betrayed him was treated by his 
former associates as an outcast. 

San Francisco was the chief center of political 
power. It was the point where all the inland lines 
of travel converged, where the politicians of the in- 
terior met to arrange their plans. There was not so 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 311 

much communication between Mokelumne Hill and 
Placerville, though only thirty miles apart, as there 
was between either town and San Francisco, which 
was two hundred miles from each. In this metro- 
politan situation, Broderick and Gwin were the lead- 
ers of the two rival factions, but the latter was in the 
city, the weaker of the two. He had not the same 
talent for partisan discipline, not so much experience 
in it, nor, on account of his duties as senator at Wash- 
ington, could he devote so much time to it; and what 
was more important than all, the southern people, 
who were his reliance, were in a decided minority in 
the city, where the northern men, who sympathized 
with Broderick's policy, even when they disliked him 
personally, were numerous, especially among the 
classes who had most influence in the partisan organ- 
ization. Having control of the San Francisco nomi- 
nations, and of the delegations sent by San Francisco 
to the democratic state conventions, Broderick pos- 
sessed in them a large capital for partisan traffic, 
while Gwin had no such strength to trade with. 

Broderick was determined to do everything that 
was necessary to secure his election to the federal sen- 
ate with the help of the democratic party. It appeared 
indispensable that he should use many very disreputa- 
ble men, like Mulligan, Sullivan and Casey, but ho 
refused to associate with them. Some of them he 
paid with money and some with minor offices. With 
other men, against Avhom much was said in the com- 
munity, in some cases perhaps more on account of the 



312 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

company in which they were seen than for any other 
reason, he was on terms of familiar friendship, and he 
considered them his lieutenants, to be called into ser- 
vice whenever their several capacities were adapted 
to the work to be done. Among them were J. M. 
Estell, A. J. Butler, Leonidas Haskell, Reuben Ma- 
loney, and Judge McGowan. Another class, com- 
posed of men of excellent repute, was employed in 
work suited to their tastes, and under circumstances 
when their respectability would reflect credit on him. 
He had friends also among his political enemies; but 
most of the men with whom he associated familiarly 
were political tricksters of low character. 

Sec. 155. Reward for Service. These people did 
not serve him for nothing. Many of them received 
high pay, usually out of the public treasury. It was 
not his policy to let those who had been his friends go 
without reward, some with office, some otherwise. 
When the county supervisors and city council, in 1852 
(the city had then one government, and the county 
another), united to buy the Jenny Lind theater from 
his friend, Thomas Maguire, for twice as much as the 
property was worth, he favored the transaction. It 
was consummated in defiance of a strong outburst of 
popular indignation, but not long afterwards the value 
of land advanced so much that the property was 
worth more than had been paid for it. 

When Broderick sought to secure the senatorship 
in 1854, he felt the want of support by some respect- 
able newspaper in San Francisco, and he secured that 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 313 

of the " Alta California," which had previously been 
his enemy. As it depended for its support mainly on 
the merchants, with whom as a class he was very un- 
popular, the paper incurred serious risks by advocating 
his cause, but a cash consideration was paid, and sub- 
sequently the county supervisors purchased the Alta 
building on the south-west corner of Washington 
street and Brenham place for a hall of records, pay- 
ing about fifty thousand dollars in warrants, or the 
equivalent of forty thousand dollars in gold for it — 
considerably more than it was worth. 

The extension bill of 1853 was one of the great 
political frauds of California. It provided that the 
water front of San Francisco should be moved six 
hundred feet into the bay beyond the line fixed as a 
permanent water front by law in 1851, and the inter- 
vening strip should be conveyed to individuals; at 
least one third of the value to go into the state treas- 
ury, and the remainder to those persons who had 
bought the land at the Peter Smith sale several years 
before. That sale purported to grant the interest of 
the city in the land, but as the city had not the least 
interest there, the deed was void. It served, how- 
ever, as a basis for a vast scheme of plunder, which 
was to be carried out with the help of the legislature. 
The property was valued at six million dollars. It 
was expected that the state would get two million, 
and the holders of deeds for the extension land 
four million, which latter sum was to be stolen 
indirectly from the state treasury. Of course the 



314 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

advocates of the measure did not confess that it 
was theft; they pretended that purchasers at the 
Peter Smith sale had equities which the state should 
recognize; and they argued, though the argument de- 
served no respect, that the extension would benefit 
the city and commerce. Some of the younger, or 
more ignorant, members of the legislature doubtless 
believed that the measure was right; others voted to 
please friends and without demanding any valuable 
consideration, but many sold their votes. It was a 
matter of common notoriety that deeds had been dis- 
tributed freely among legislators while the bill was 
pending. 

In San Francisco, the leading journals denounced 
the measure in the most emphatic terms; the mer- 
chants held meetings to condemn it; its fraudulent 
features were fully explained and proved; it was a 
violation of the contract made in the statute fixing 
the water front line in 1851; it would require the 
raising of the grade on Montgomery street from Jack- 
son to Sutter street eight or ten feet, and a corre- 
sponding increase of elevation further east, thus im- 
posing upon the citizens an expense far beyond the 
amount that would be paid into the state treasury. 
Those San Francisco assemblymen opposed to the bill 
resigned for the purpose of getting an expression of 
opinion from their constituents, and they were tri- 
umphantly re-elected by five sixths of all the votes 
cast. There was no doubt about the feeling in San 
Francisco. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 315 

The majority of the holders of the extension deeds 
were Broderick's intimate friends. The measure was 
recommended by Governor Bigler, who was under his 
influence. Brush, one of his devoted followers, in- 
troduced the bill. Estell, one of his chief aids, was 
its manager in the lobby. Nearly all his friends in 
the legislature voted for it; he was in attendance 
during the session, though his home was in San 
Francisco, and he was not a member. It passed the 
assembly, where his faction had a large majority; it 
was defeated in the senate by the casting vote of 
Lieutenant-Governor Samuel Purdy, who afterwards 
received the congratulations of Mr. Broderick for 
having done right, with the explanation that as his 
friends were largely interested in the bill, he had not 
made any effort against it. By Broderick's influence 
Bigler was subsequently renominated, Estell obtained 
a lucrative state prison contract, and Brush was 
placed in a fat office in San Francisco. 

Purdy 's vote secured great popularity to him, and 
there was a general demand that he should be the 
democratic candidate for governor. There was no 
doubt that the extension bill was generally considered 
a serious fraud, and that Bigler, if renominated, would 
lose many democratic votes. But Broderick had his 
personal purposes to gain, and for their sake lie Avas 
willing to endanger the party, and to impose upon the 
good nature of his friends. The election of Purdy 
for governor would have thrown two obstacles in the 
way of his advancement to the senate. Purdy and 



316 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

he were both from the same state, and objection would 
surely be made to giving a senatorship to a New 
Yorker immediately after another had obtained the 
governorship. If Bigler, who was a Pennsylvanian, 
were not nominated for governor, he would become a 
candidate for senator, and his popularity with the 
Missourians, who were a strong element in the legis- 
lature, might give him the preference. The leader of 
the Tammany faction explained these points to Purdy, 
and begged him not to be a candidate, and the selfish 
request was acceded to with an excess of generosity. 
Bigler and Purdy were renominated for governor and 
lieutenant-governor; the platform avoided all mention 
of the extension fraud; Purdy received twelve thou- 
sand votes more than Bigler; and the latter had a 
majority of fifteen hundred, though it was generally 
believed that he owed not less than three thousand 
votes to frauds on the ballot-box. 

Though Broderick did not plunder the public treas- 
ury for his own profit, nor directly assist his friends 
to do so for theirs, yet he was, for several years, the 
" boss" of the city administration of San Francisco, as 
much as Tweed ever was in New York, and the gen- 
eral character of the city officials was equally base in 
the two cities under the " boss" control. 

Sec. 156. Veracity. Mr. Broderick employed 
falsehood often and boldly, for the purpose of deceiv- 
ing the people and injuring his enemies. He not only 
denied facts known to many persons, but he contra- 
dicted himself, and thus furnished proof of his mis- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 317 

representations. In a public letter, he said: " Be- 
tween Mr. Gwin and myself there was no condition 
whatever in regard to the distribution of the patron- 
age." In a speech at Quincy, he told the people that 
" Gwin sought me * * * and begged me, in the 
most humiliating maimer to take him with me to 
the United States senate." At Stockton, he repre- 
sented that there was a bargain, but it was made by 
Gwin with Ferguson; and at Yreka, he declared that 
Gwin " absolutely sold his followers for the position 
he now holds. * ** * I gave him the position." 
On one occasion he said he knew nothing of G win's 
promise to give up the patronage, and afterwards he 
published Gwin's letter to himself dated three days 
before the election, renouncing all claim to the pat- 
ronage. At Nevada, he asserted that he intended 
to support Latham, but discovered that the latter had 
employed an agent to steal a letter from Tilford, and 
for that reason Gwin was preferred. We have, how- 
ever, the concurrent testimony of Estell, Tilford and 
Latham to prove that Latham was defeated solely 
because he would not give a written bill of sale trans- 
fering all the federal patronage in California. Besides, 
when Broderick replied to Latham's long speech at 
Nevada, giving a history of the, senatorial election, he 
did not contradict the latter's statements. 

Those -who knew Mr. Broderick intimately claimed 
for him remarkable administrative ability, high con- 
versational power, a strong attachment for his friends, 
a strict regard for his promises, and a wonderful 



318 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

capacity to charm all upon whom he exerted his pow- 
ers. Their opinion may be accepted upon those points. 
He must have been a remarkable man to have tri- 
umphed over circumstances so strongly adverse as he 
repeatedly did, and to hold his influence over his 
followers after he had made so many serious blunders. 
Sec. 157. ' Chase for Senator ship. He spent seven 
years in his struggle for the prize of the federal sena- 
torship. Three times — in 1851, in 1855, and in 1856 
— he prevented an election rather than permit any- 
body else to get the place; once — in 1852 — he was 
defeated; once — in 1854 — he attempted to bring on 
the election fraudulently before the proper time; only 
one legislative session — that of 1853 — between 1850 
and 1857 inclusive, was free from the worry of a 
senatorial contest, and in six out of the seven 
struggles Mr. Broderick was a prominent actor. In 
1854 his congressional ticket got only ten thousand 
out of seventy thousand votes; in 1855 his party was 
defeated because he controlled its nominations; in 
July, 1856, rumor said he was in danger of banish- 
ment by the vigilance committee, and when he left 
the city for several days his absence was popularly 
attributed to fear of the committee. Thus for three 
successive years after his attempt to grab the sena- 
torial toga before it was ready, the people had ex- 
pressed their dislike of him in a most emphatic man- 
ner; yet in January, 1857, he turned up as master of 
the legislature, and not only secured his own election 
to the highest political office which California could 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 319 

confer, but designated his bitterest political enemy 
as his colleague, obtaining from him, however, a writ- 
ten assurance that Mr. Broderick was to be dictator 
of the democratic party in California. Supposing that 
this transfer of the federal patronage to him would be 
approved by the people and his party, he confidently 
anticipated the distribution of the leading federal offi- 
ces in the state among his friends, and when his 
demand was refused, he denounced President Buchan- 
an as a dotard, and his policy as an outrage upon 
freedom. He appealed to the people of California to 
sustain him and they condemned him. Challenged by 
Perley, he declined, under the pretense that an alien 
was not entitled to the satisfaction of a gentleman, 
but he declared that he would not object to shoot 
at some official as hi^li in office as himself. This 
bait, designed for Gwin, was seized by Terry, who, as 
a preparation for it, resigned his office of chief justice 
of the state. Broderick was so nervous that his pistol 
went off before he was ready, and his cool antagonist 
planted a mortal bullet within two inches of the spot 
which would have been instantly fatal. Thus this 
ambitious man was finally at rest; his fortunes ceased 
to vary, and his character belongs to history, where it 
must be judged, not by the extravagant praise of his 
personal friends, or the hate of his enemies, but by 
his public actions, which furnish sufficient material for 
measuring him morally and intellectually. 

Sec. 158. I860. Among the important events of 
1860 were the rejection by the federal supreme court 



320 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of the Santillan claim under a p ret ended Mexican 
grant for fifteen thousand acres south of California 
street; the defeat by the state supreme court of the 
Peter Smith title to two thousand acres of land west 
of Larkin street, and the publication of evidence 
showing conclusively that the Sherreback claim for a 
tract of eight hundred acres south of Market and 
east of Tenth street was worthless. These claims and 
the Limantour, defeated two years before^ had all 
been held by a few speculators; the Limantour and 
Santillan by persons not residents of the city; and as 
they were not in possession, and the occupants were 
not disposed to buy them off, the grading of lots, the 
opening of streets and the construction of houses on 
the large areas covered by the claims had been pre- 
vented or seriously obstructed. The overthrow of 
the claims added much to the wealth of thousands of 
citizens, gave security to the titles of large districts, 
and stimulated improvement and business south of 
Market and west of Larkin street. The construction 
of the steam railroad on Market and Valencia streets 
gave cheap and convenient access to the Mission and 
to Hayes valley, and added much to the value of 
their land. The Washoe mines had attracted much 
attention in 1859, but it was not until 1860 that the 
conviction was established that the Comstock lode 
had large and rich ore deposits, not to be exhausted 
for many years, and that the business men of San 
Francisco began to comprehend the importance of 
owning the mines and controling the management by 
companies incorporated in their city. 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 321 

The federal census reported that California had 
379,994 inhabitants. Of these three sevenths were 
men between the ages of twenty and fifty, and one 
eighth were women of the same age: and more than 
one third of all, or one half the adults were of foreign 
birth. Of the 146,528 foreigners, China supplied 
34,935; Ireland, 33,147; Germany, 21,046; England, 
12,227; Mexico, 9,150; France, 8,462; British Amer- 
ica, 5,438; Scotland, 3,670; Italy, 2,805; and South 
America, 2,250. The American states which had the 
largest number of natives in California, were California, 
77,707; New York, 28,654; Missouri, 14,002; Ohio, 
12,592; Massachusetts, 12,165; Pennsylvania, 11,143; 
Maine, 9,864; Illinois, 8,251; Kentucky, 7,029; Ten- 
nessee, 5,197; and Virginia, 5,157. All the Amer- 
ican states and all civilized nations were represented 
in this motley population; San Francisco was credited 
with 56,802 inhabitants. 

Sec. 159. Prosperity. The defeat of the Mexican 
and Peter Smith claims to large areas in the south- 
ern part of the city, not only enriched thousands 
of citizens occupying the land in dispute, who now 
became the owners in full, and gave them inducements 
for opening streets, grading lots, and building sub- 
stantial houses, but it offered opportunities for the 
investment of money, just at the time when the out- 
break of the civil war checked the habit of paying 
visits to the east, and stimulated many Califomiana 
who had previously considered the state as a place for a 
brief sojourn to look upon it as their permanent home. 

21 



322 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The ownership of the land south of Pine street 
having been doubtful, those citizens who wanted per- 
manent homes had been compelled to purchase them 
in the northern wards, where the space was limited, 
the streets narrow and in many places steep, the build- 
ings old and shabby, the grading, on account of the 
tough clay of the soil or underlying rock, costly, and 
the. prices high. It was because of the uncertainty 
of titles in the south that most of the fashionable res- 
idences before 1860 were on Stockton, Powell, Mason 
and Taylor streets, north of Clay, and that nearly all 
the houses of worship were north of Pine street. St. 
Mary's cathedral and the First Congregational church 
were on the corner of California and Dupont streets; 
the First Unitarian and First Presbyterian on Stock- 
ton, near Clay; the First Baptist on Washington, near 
Stockton; the First Methodist and Grace (Episcopal) 
on Powell, near Washington, and Trinity (Episcopal) 
on Pine, below Kearny. The sites of these churches 
were selected then with reference to their proximity 
to the residences of the members of their conoTe^a- 
tions. The leading hotels, save the Oriental, were 
also north of Pine street. 

The south end of the city, released from the heavy 
drag which had checked enterprise and prevented im- 
provement for ten years, started suddenly irpon a 
wonderful career of prosperity. The north end, de- 
prived of the protection previously given to it by the 
inability to obtain secure titles and by the prohibition 
of grading and building in the south, remained nearly 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 323 

stationary, while the growth, the fashion, and the 
w T ealth gravitated rapidly to the southward, and to 
the western addition, which was reached through the 
southern streets. The work of the steam paddy, the 
construction of street railroads, the rise of the new 
hotels, completely eclipsing those of older date in the 
convenience of arrangement and elegance of construe- 
tion and furniture as well as in size, and the transfer 
of the majority of the wealthy families, of the most 
fashionable promenades, and of the leading theaters 
and churches to the region south of Pine street, were 
among the important changes that followed the judi- 
cial decisions defeating the great land frauds. It is a 
singular fact, however, that the decision confirming 
the Sherreback claim has never been reversed, though 
it is said that the claimants have abandoned it. The 
rapid progress of the agriculture of the state, and the 
large revenue derived from the Comstock lode stimu- 
lated the growth of the city, and in the course of the 
year ending with August, 1861, one thousand four 
hundred and fifty-three new buildings were completed 
or commenced, including the Russ house, Lick house, 
Occidental hotel, Masonic temple, Grace church, and 
St. Mary's hospital. 

Sec. 160. Bulkhead. As the time for the expira- 
tion of the contracts under which the wharves had 
been built was approaching, the owners of those 
structures having enjoyed large profits from the heavy 
taxes levied upon ships, formed a consolidated corpo- 
ration, which proposed to build a stone bulkhead, and 



324 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

requested the legislature to give them, as compensa- 
tion, possession of the water front, with the privilege 
of collecting tolls there for fifty years. The mercan- 
tile community protested against such a sacrifice of 
public interests to lobby influence, but the legislature 
passed the bill in defiance of sound policy and the 
popular will; but as the city had been saved seven 
years before from the great fraud of the extension 
bill, by the casting vote of Lieutenant-Governor 
Purdy, so now it was saved from the bulkhead bill 
by the veto of Governor Downey. 

Sec. 161. Pony Express. A notable event in its 
time was the establishment of the pony express, 
which began its service carrying letters between St. 
Joseph, Missouri, the western end of the railway sys- 
tem on the Atlantic slope and Sacramento on the 
Pacific side. The distance was about nineteen hun- 
dred miles, and the time ten and a half days, or two 
hundred and fifty hours, with an average speed of 
nearly eight miles an hour, each horse going about 
twenty-four miles. 

The horse mail started twice a week each way and 
seldom carried more than two hundred letters on a 
trip, sometimes not twenty, the high postage of five 
dollars for a half ounce driving the ordinary business 
to the slower mail. The first pony mail rider from 
the east arrived at one a. m. on the fourteenth of April 
at San Francisco, by the regular steamboat from 
Sacramento, bringing his horse with him for the pur- 
pose of making a display on his arrival. Announce- 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 325 

ment had been made that there was to be a public 
demonstration, and a multitude of people went in 
grand procession, with music and torches to the wharf, 
whence they escorted the mounted mail-carrier with 
continuous cheers to the post-office. The time for let- 
ters between New York and San Francisco was by the 
help of the pony reduced to thirteen days; but for 
news it was brought down to nine days, that being 
the time between the telegraphic stations at Carson and 
St. Joseph. The pony mail, though sometimes inter- 
rupted by Indian troubles, deprived the mail stage on 
the southern route of much of its interest for the gen- 
eral public, and was the main reliance of California 
for important news until the telegraph was completed 
across the continent. Before the pony mail had been 
started, a telegraph company, aided largely by news- 
paper enterprise, had begun to construct a line through 
the San Joaquin valley, on the mail route, the object 
being to catch the news in advance of the arrival of 
the sta^e at San Francisco. The wire reached Visalia 
in June, and was then continued on to Los Angeles, 
but its value for the purposes of its construction was 
of brief duration. 

Sec. 1G2. Election of 1SG0. Though about two thou- 
sand miles away from any of the territory upon which 
the rebellion raged, California was profoundly agitated 
by the war. At nearly all the elections, from 1852 
to 1859, the people of California had given decided 
majorities to the party in favor of the extension of 
slaverv. In 1859 the southern democrats had G2,000 



326 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

out of 103,000 votes; in 1858, 44,500 out of 81,000, 
and in 1857, 53,000 out of 93,000; but in 1860, when 
the death of Mr. Broderick had removed an objec- 
tion that kept many votes from the northern democ- 
racy while under his political management, and when 
the line between the north and south was drawn with 
greater distinctness, the state gave its electoral vote 
to Lincoln, and out of 71,000 democratic votes, Doug- 
las, the northern candidate, had 38,000. Breckin- 
ridge, who represented the moral right of secession, 
though the intention to secede was not avowed, and 
was not generally believed, had little more than one 
fourth of the votes cast in California, and only one 
sixth in San Francisco. Thus a large majority of the 
people had indicated at the polls that their sympa- 
thies were with the north, as might be inferred from 
the fact that more than two thirds of the Californians 
born on the Atlantic slope were natives of the free 
states. Under these circumstances it is not strange 
that when the flag of the rebellion was hoisted, Cali- 
fornia, under the leadership of San Francisco, ad- 
hered to the Union, and continued faithful to it to 
the end. 

One result of the war was the abandonment of the 
overland mail on the southern route, and the estab- 
lishment of a daily overland stage on the central 
route. At the same time the telegraph made rapid 
strides from both sides towards Salt Lake, where the 
connection was made on the twenty-third of October, 
and then San Francisco was put in instantaneous 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 327 

communication with New York. A new apportion- 
ment was made this year, giving the city one seventh 
of the members of the legislature, whereas it had 
previously only one tenth. 

Sec. 163. Baker s Oration. On the twenty-ninth 
of October, a few days before the presidential election 
that was to give the federal government to the repub- 
lican party, and put a stop to the advances of slavery 
on our continent, there was a great gathering of peo- 
ple at the American theater to welcome Edward D. 
Baker, who, long a resident of San Francisco, had in 
the previous spring gone to Oregon for the purpose of 
being elected federal senator, and while on his way to 
Washington with his commission in his pocket had 
stopped to spend a few days in the city which he con- 
sidered his home, though he declared that his legal 
residence was in Oregon. He was a great orator, and 
on this occasion had great topics to discuss — the rights 
of freedom, the duty of sincere republicans to elect 
their candidates in defiance of the threats of the 
slavery extensionists, and the course which he should 
pursue as senator. The following passage in his ora- 
tion deserves quotation here : 

We are a city set on a hill. Our light cannot be hid. As for 
me, I dare not, I will not be false to freedom. Where the feet 
of my youth were planted, there, by freedom, my feet shall 
stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her 
strength. I have watched her, in history, struck down on an 
hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her friends fly 
from her; her foes gather round her. I have seen her bound to 
the stake; I have seen them give her ashes to the winds. But 



328 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them 
face to face, resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her 
right hand a flaming sword, red with insufferable light. I take 
courage. The people gather round her. The Genius of Amer- 
ica will at last lead her sons to freedom. 

The orator was not a native of our city, nor even 
of our continent, having been brought to the United 
States when an infant by his English parents, but it 
was here that he found inspiration and appreciation 
for a passage which is one of the glories of San Fran- 
cisco. It will survive the English language, if that 
can ever die; it will be repeated, cherished and ap- 
pealed to until freedom in every form, the most pre- 
cious of all the triumphs of humanity, and the struggle 
for it, the most sacred of all duties, shall have lost their 
interest. It surpasses any paragraph in Demosthenes, 
Cicero, Burke, Mirabeau, Brougham, Webster, Sum- 
ner, or Gladstone; it more than complies with Ma- 
caulay's definition of eloquence. It is the soundest 
reason (deduced from numerous famous experiences, 
going back as far as history over a field as wide as civil- 
ization) on a subject appealing to the strongest sym- 
pathies of our common nature, white hot with the 
justest and most generous enthusiasm, and expressed 
in the highest polish of rhetoric. The large auditory, 
enthusiastic on account of their numbers, their zealous 
devotion to their party and its principles, confident of 
their victory, as assured by every premonitory sign, 
and about to take part in the ballot battle that was 
to decide the policy and fate of a great nation, received 



THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 329 

Baker's outburst with keen appreciation, thrilling ex- 
citement, and thundering applause. 

Sec. 164. Seven Years. The period of seven 
years, from 1854 to 1860 inclusive, was marked by 
the decline in the yield of gold, then the chief product 
of the area tributary to San Francisco, which ceased 
to gain population and wealth so rapidly as in the 
previous era, and in some of her leading branches of 
business suffered severely, though she continued to 
prosper, building many houses every year, opening 
new streets, paving old ones, building sowers, and 
grading streets to the newly adopted official levels. 
Many families arrived from the east, society improved 
notably, and communication with the Atlantic slope 
was greatly facilitated by the Panama railroad, the 
overland stage, and the pony express. 

"While the gold yield and the number of mines de- 
creased, the state was making far more progress than 
it had done in the preceding five years. It changed 
the bulk of its population from a migratory to a fixed 
condition. The titles of many of the Mexican grants 
were settled; considerable areas of federal land were 
surveyed and occupied ; numerous farm buildings, 
fences, roads and bridges were constructed; orchards 
and vineyards were set out with the best varieties of 
fruit; horses, neat cattle and sheep of the best blood 
were imported; and a still greater addition was made 
to the wealth of the state by the arrival of the wives, 
children, sisters and mothers of men who had lived 
for years without their families. The regions about 



330 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

San Francisco, San Pablo, Suisun and Monterey bays 
were especially prosperous; the towns of Sacramento, 
Stockton and Marysville improved ; and in the mining- 
regions, while the shallow placers were giving out, 
many hydraulic camps, including Yankee Jim, Todd's 
Valley, Michigan Bluff, North San Juan, Campton- 
ville, Brandy City, La Porte, Port Wine, the drift 
mining towns of Iowa Hill, Forest Hill, Forest City, 
Alleghany, and the quartz mining towns, rose in im- 
portance. The growth of the state secured the continu- 
ance of the prosperity of the metropolis. 



THE SIL VER ERA. 331 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SILVER ERA. 

Section 165. 1861. Soon after the inauguration of 
Lincoln, California was called upon to decide whether 
she would adhere to the cause of the Union, or set up a 
Pacific republic, the latter course being the one recom- 
mended by the majority of her representatives in con- 
gress. On the eleventh of May, San Francisco held an 
immense public meeting, or rather collection of meetings, 
for the day was converted into a holiday. The streets 
were filled with flags, and a multitude of speeches were 
made and resolutions adopted, in favor of sustaining the 
federal government in its policy of preserving the na- 
tional unity by force. The demonstration was so 
emphatic, and showed such an immense preponderance 
of feeling in favor of the Union in the metropolis, that 
the policy of California and Oregon was decided. Six 
days later, the legislature adopted resolutions in favor of 
the Union ; but it had previously shown its feeling on 
the same side by electing James McDougal a Union dem- 
ocrat to succeed Dr. Gwin as federal senator. The 
last political duel in which a northerner was shot by a 
southerner in California soon followed and resulted in 
the death of C. W. Piercy, a Union man, shot by Daniel 
Showaiter, a secessionist. At the election in September, 
San Francisco gave more than twice as many votes for 
the republican ticket as for the two democratic tickets 



332 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

together. The republican party carried the state for the 
first time, electing Leland Stanford governor. As a 
consequence of the war, the southern overland mail was 
abandoned, and a daily overland mail was established 
by way of Salt Lake. By the completion of the tele- 
graph across the continent, important changes were made 
in mercantile business, banking, journalism and social 
life. 

Sec. 166. 1862. For eight years from 1853 there 
had been a steady decline in the yield of the precious 
metals on the Pacific slope, until in 1861 the exporta- 
tion had fallen to forty million dollars, a decrease of two 
million dollars a }~ear on an average ; but now it began 
to rise again. The Comstock lode in 1862 turned out 
six million dollars, and gave promise of doing far better 
in the future. A number of mills were at work on its 
ores, and experience in extracting silver had made 
enough progress to enable the trustees of the mining 
companies to form a definite idea of the business. The 
general opinion among them was one of high satisfaction 
with the profits of working the better quality of ores. 
The method of reduction by amalgamation in iron pans 
holding a ton or two of pulverized ore was new; and 
though there was a large waste, varying from one third 
to one half of the precious metal, yet as the working was 
expeditious, while the other processes were slow and 
more costly, it was maintained, while all attempts to 
reduce in wooden barrels like those of Freiberg, or in 
Mexican heaps like mortar beds, were abandoned. The 
production of silver having been three times as large as 



THE SILVER ERA. 333 

in the previous year, with confidence of a still larger 
yield in the near future, there was an active demand for 
the stocks of the silver companies, and their sale now 
became a prominent feature in the city's business, to 
which it gave a highly speculative tendency. The San 
Francisco stock and exchange board was organized to 
accommodate the dealers in the shares of silver mining 
companies. Although the gold mines of California pro- 
duced four times as much as the Comstock lode, they 
had a very inferior place as spheres of investment in 
the general opinion, partly because most of the gold 

mines were worked on a relativelv small scale, and re- 

j 

quired the daily attendance of the owners, so that there 
would have been little profit for companies organized in 
the metropolis. The largest gold mine ever worked in 
California is a small affair financially as compared with 
the leading mines of the Comstock lode. Gold stocks 
were in 1862, as they still are, of little importance as 
compared with silver stocks in the San Francisco 
market. 

The civil war which oppressed the Atlantic slope stim- 
ulated business on the Pacific side. The increased risks 
of the voyage round Cape Horn caused a rise in Freights, 
and aided the establishment or enlargement of many 
manufacturing houses. Agricultural produce commanded 
good prices. Congress, to reward and confirm the loy- 
alty of California, and to provide a quicker and more 
secure communication between the eastern and western 
coasts of the country, passed a bill to aid the construc- 
tion of a railroad from the Missouri to the Sacramento 



334 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

river. While certain classes of people were prevented 
from coming to California, others fled to the Pacific to 
avoid the tumult of hostilities or the draft. The check 
upon travel had a strong influence in favor of economy 
and stability of population. A flood which exceeded 
any other before or since within the observation of 
American residents, drove thousands of people from the 
lower portions of the Sacramento and San Joaquin val- 
leys, many taking refuge in San Francisco, and contri- 
buting to its wealth. For several days the state house 
in Sacramento was not accessible without the aid of 
boats, and the legislature moved to the metropolis for 
the remainder of the session. More than one thousand 
houses were built. The rapid growth of the city gave 
rise to an active speculation in town lots, and numerous 
homestead associations were organized to help poor people 
in exchanging their money for little patches of land in 
remote places. The Russ, the Lick and the Occidental, 
finer and more spacious hotels than any of their prede- 
cessors, were built and opened. The waters of Pilarcitos 
creek were brought in with a larger supply than the city 
had had before, and at a better elevation. The cars of 
the Omnibus street railroad began to run, and the work 
on the North Beach and Mission road was commenced. 
The republican party, which had carried the state in 
the previous year, withdrew from the field, so as to per- 
mit a fusion of its members with the Union democrats in 
the Union party — the Californian political organization 
which sustained the administration of President Lin- 
coln till the close of the war, against the democrats, its 
enemies. 



THE SILVER ERA. 335 

Sec. 167. Sanitary Fund. While the rebels were 
seeking to divide the country into two nations, which 
would probably have been hostile to each other for ages, 
and would necessarily have maintained standing armies 
objectionable on account of their danger to liberty, as 
well as of their cost, many patriotic citizens of San Fran- 
cisco, unable to leave their families and business and 
make the long voyage to the Atlantic side, at an expense 
greater than that of hiring a substitute there, felt some 
twinges of conscience that they had not borne arms in 
defense of the stany flag. Others, who could conveni- 
ently go, went. Among those who reached high com- 
mands in the Union army were not less than a dozen 
who had been residents of California. Sherman, Hal- 
leck and Hooker, stationed as officers of the army at 
San Francisco, had long before resigned to engage in 
civil business. McPherson had been one of the army 
engineers at San Francisco for years before he was ordered 
east at the outbreak of the rebellion. Grant and Sher- 
idan had been stationed in the state. Others of less 
note were numerous; and many of the military leaders 
on the southern side had also been in California. 

The time came, however, when patriotic citizens could 
render valuable service to the Union without taking up 
arms. In the disastrous campaign of 18G2, large num- 
bers of soldiers were stricken down by wounds or dis- 
ease, and the government was unable to take the best 
care of them. Some philanthropic and patriotic Xew 
Yorkers organized the Sanitary Commission, under the 
leadership and presidency of Dr. Bellows, the distin- 



33G HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

guished Unitarian clergyman and pulpit orator. He 
wrote to bis friend Starr King, who started the move- 
ment for a subscription in San Francisco, and gave bis 
zeal and eloquence to the cause. Here was a chance for 
the people to show their attachment to the Union, and 
their response was magnificent. San Francisco sent three 
hundred thousand dollars in gold in the last half of 
1862, and other portions of the Pacific Slope supplied 
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The secre- 
tary of the committee which collected the money y in a 
report of its work, said : 

All private business was ignored, for the time, by the gen- 
tlemen composing the committee, and the chief hours of the day 
given to this new and noble work. The whole city seemed to be 
thrilled as with an electric shock, and the talk of the groups on 
the streets, the merchants on 'change, boys in the gutter, of 
men, women and children, was the movement for the relief of 
our sick and wounded soldiers; and every lo3 T al man's heartbeat 
in active sympathy with the work. The soldiers' needs took such 
an energetic hold on the people that the committee, on their 
rounds, were not treated as unwelcome beggars, but greeted as 
men who were doing a work which it was each man's pride to see 
well accomplished; and they gave — all citizens gave — with such 
enthusiasm as one might expect from recipients of good gifts, 
instead of givers of the wealth they had toiled for; and there 
was such singular unanimity as men see in no other great public 
undertaking. There was alive, to interrupt their action, no bias 
of political feeling, no conflict of religious opinion, no difference 
on grounds of nationality. Men gave their gold as the overflow 
of great patriotic love. It was the blood of their giant pro- 
tector, their country, native or adopted, that was flowing, and 
they came forth readily to stay its stream. Men of every politi- 
cal party gave, whether Democrats, Republicans, or even seces- 
sionists; and there was no sect or religion that was not repre- 



THE SIL VER ERA. 337 

sented in this noble anny of givers. The Christians gave with 
loyal self-denial; the Jews, as earnest sympathizers with the 
suffering; heretics, as citizens of a republic to be saved; and 
men of no religion, with an ardor worthy the humblest religious 
devotee. The representatives of every nation living in our 
midst, English, German, French, Irish, Chinese, Italian, Hun- 
garian, Kussian, Spanish, gave with the fervor of native citi- 
zens. 

The large sum thus supplied by California gave im- 
portance to the Sanitary Commission, which had pre- 
viously done little, and had been almost unheard of in 
most of the Atlantic states ; but with this help, it became 
a prominent feature of the war. The money subscrip- 
tions from the other parts of the Union were compara- 
tively small, and in October, 18G3, Dr. Bellows sent the 
following telegram to San Francisco: 

The sanitary funds are low. Our expenses are fifty thousand 
dollars a month. We can live three months, and that only, 
without large support from the Pacific. Twenty-five thousand 
dollars a month, paid regularly while the war lasts, from Cali- 
fornia, would make our continuance on our present magnificent 
scale of beneficence a certainty. We would make up the other 
twenty-five thousand dollars a month here. We have already 
distributed sanitary stores, of the value of seven million dollars, 
to all parts of the army, at a cost of three per cent. To aban- 
don our work, or to allow it to dwindle, would be a horrible 
calamity to the army and the cause. We never stood so well 
with the nation; but California has been our main support in 
money, and if she fails us we are lost. So organize, if possible, 
a monthly subscription, and let us feel that California trusts and 
will sustain us in her past spirit to the end. 

A response sent that San Francisco would supply 
two hundred thousand dollars in 18G4, and that there 



338 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

was reason to hope that other parts of the state would 
give one hundred thousand dollars more, called out the 
following acknowledgment, which, read with high local 
pride and tears of emotion on the morning of its recep- 
tion at the tables of many of the contributors, was a re- 
ward for past and a stimulus for future contributions: 

Brothers: I wonder that your life-giving telegram, charged 
with two hundred thousand dollars, did not find me in my 
travels, and shock me into immediate consciousness of the splen- 
did news. But just returned to New York, I see my table illu- 
minated with this resplendent message, and in my haste to 
acknowledge such a glorious and patriotic continuance in well- 
doing, I can only stutter: Noble, Tender, Faithful San Francisco, 
city of the heart, commercial and moral capital of the most 
humane and generous state in the world! If God gives to you, 
so you give to others. Your boundaries will not hold the riches 
and the blessings in store for you; they must needs overflow 
into the hands of the needy and suffering, and make your name 
the balm and cordial of want and sorrow. "I was sick, and ye 
visited me." This is the nation's thought, as she sees herself 
wounded in every hero that languishes in her hospitals, and 
then gazes at the Pacific, at California, with San Francisco at 
the head — the good Samaritan for the first time appearing in 
the proportions of a great city, of a whole state, of a vast area. 

A monthly subscription was organized, and the sum 
of twenty-five thousand dollars a month — nearly one 
thousand dollars for every business day — was sent by 
San Francisco, which then had not more than one hun- 
dred and ten thousand inhabitants. The final report of 
the commission, published after the close of the war, 
showed that out of four million eight hundred thousand 
dollars cash received, California had supplied more than 
one million two hundred thousand in currency. The 



THE SILVER ERA. 330 

gold value of the latter amount was about nine hundred 
and forty thousand dollars, and of this sum San Fran- 
cisco supplied about half. The Christian Commission of 
California organized for purposes similar to those of the 
Sanitary Commission , sent thirty-four thousand dollars 
in gold to the central organization in Philadelphia. 

Sec. 168. 1863. The flood season of 1862, which 
brought forty-nine inches of rain, was succeeded by the 
drought of 1863, when there were only fourteen, or less 
than two thirds of the average; but as agricultural pro- 
duce commanded high prices, and the Comstock lode 
yielded twelve million dollars, or twice as much as in 
the previous year, San Francisco was prosperous. The 
opening of the railroad to San Jose extended the sub- 
urbs of the city for a distance of thirty miles, and helped 
to enrich San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The 
North Beach and Mission, and the Central street-rail- 
road to Lone Mountain, were completed, and also the 
Oakland railroad wharf, twelve hundred yards long, so 
that access was given to that town at regular hours, in- 
stead of being dependent on the tides as before. The 
Cliff House road was finished, and the legislature passed 
acts to authorize the widening of Kearny street, and to 
transfer the control of the water front of San Francisco 
from private corporations to state officials. The new 
houses of the year numbered twelve hundred. 

Sec. 169. Silver Panic. The production of silver at 
Washoe, and the distribution of large dividends, made 
an intense excitement in the metropolis. Mining for 
silver, and the management of silver mining companies, 



340 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

were as yet comparatively new, and people did not know 
what to expect or believe. The books on Mexico, Peru, 
and Bolivia, were ransacked for information about the 
Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Cerro Pasco, and Potosi argent- 
iferous lodes which were similar in many of their min- 
eralogical features to the Comstock ; and the continued 
productiveness of these mines for centuries had a strong 
influence to encourage speculation in the silver stocks of 
San Francisco. The shares, or feet, as they were gen- 
erally called, for at that time it was customary to have 
one share for each lineal foot, had in some leading mines 
been rising in price at the rate of about one hundred 
dollars every month for a year, until in June, Gould & 
Curry sold for six thousand three hundred dollars ; Sav- 
age, four thousand dollars; Ophir, two thousand seven 
hundred dollars; Hale k Norcross, two thousand one 
hundred dollars, and Chollar, one thousand dollars. 
These figures indicate that the aggregate value of the 
lode was about twenty-five million dollars, of which a 
large part had been gained or added by speculation with- 
in the year. The market was then sustained chiefly by 
the Gould & Curry, which was working a highly profit- 
able bonanza. Some of the richest stockholders, learn- 
ing that the limits of the rich deposit had been reached, 
and that the dividends to be expected would not justify 
the price, sold out. A panic followed, with a swift dis- 
appearance of much of the imaginary wealth, and great 
losses to thousands of poor people, for by this time all 
classes of the population had become holders of feet, and 
the stock board was one of the chief centers of business 
in San Francisco. 



THE SIL VER ERA. 341 

So long as the bodies of silver ore in the Comstock 
lode had appeared to grow larger as greater depth was 
reached, and inexperience and hope knew not where 
they should limit their calculations of profit from the 
dividends of the mining companies, so long there was 
increase of excitement upon a basis that had no per- 
manence. After the panic, unscrupulous speculators 
began to make changes in their mode of doing business, 
so that they would be sure of gains whether their mines 
should pay dividends or not. The laws had been loosely 
drawn, and all the permissible privileges that could be 
turned to their pecuniary advantage were taken. The 
increase in the number of shares was a great conveni- 
ence, and almost a necessity, for companies whose shares 
had sold for as much as six thousand dollars each ; but 
as there was no proper restriction upon the increase or 
the disposal of the new shares, it sometimes happened 
that they were^ issued to pay for adjacent proper ty, of 
which the managers directly or indirectly owned a large 
part. So the mining companies contracted at good prices 
with mills to crush ore in large quantities, and though 
the ore did not pay the expense of extraction and reduc- 
tion, the mill yielded a large dividend to its owners, 
who were at the same time directors of the mine. The 
mining directors, as a class, looked not to the dividends 
from the mine, but to their mills and the purchase and 
sale of the stock for the bulk of their profits. For the 
purpose of hiding their transactions, they held perhaps 
a score of shares in their own names and thousands in 
the name of a trustee — the name of the principal not 



342 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

being given — so that there was nothing on the record of 
the company to show the ownership, and no one save 
the trustee could tell on whose account the sale or pur- 
chase was made. The shares were not numbered, and 
could not be traced ; the certificates were evidences that 
so many shares had been sold, but did not indicate 
which special ones. The superintendents were selected 
by the directors, and were expected to consult their 
wishes and interests. In a rich mine the quantity and 
quality of the ore produced and the appearance of the 
stopes must be regulated by the desire of the directors 
to buy or sell. The rich deposits were concealed when 
the stock was to be bought up, or worked with every 
energy when it was to be thrown on the market. The 
superintendent of every prominent mine conducted on 
such principles had his book of ciphers, so that he could 
send secret messages to his masters and let them know 
whether the ore was growing richer or poorer, enlarging 
or diminishing in quantity. Mines were systematically 
treated as combinations, in which the managers were to 
be enriched at the expense of the mass of the stockhold- 
ers. Secret drifts, winzes and crosscuts, and at a little 
later date, the boring of the diamond drill, gave them 
important information weeks and even months before it 
was accessible to others. A decent regard for the rights 
of the company required that mining engineers of high 
reputation for ability, learning and integrity, should be 
employed in the richer mines to make a comprehensive 
report to be submitted at every annual meeting, showing 
the quantity and quality of the ore in sight, the condi- 



THE SIL YER Eli A. 343 

tion of the shafts, drifts and stopes, and the prospect for 
further working, but such reports would have prevented 
the trustees from swindling the public. Some of the 
most important checks upon dishonesty were never 
adopted ; while every trick that cunning could devise 
to make the many pay the expenses, securing to the few 
the bulk of the profit, was practiced on an extensive 
scale, in the most active of all the stock markets. On 
such a basis not less than a dozen of the millionaire for- 
tunes of San Francisco have been built. 

Sec. 170. Conness. The election of John Conness 
to the federal senatorship was a singular turn in events. 
A year and a half before, as the candidate of the Doug- 
las democrats for governor, he had used his influence to 
prevent a fusion of the Union men, and had thus ex- 
posed the cause to defeat. But he was so badly beaten 
at the polls that his faction were demoralized, and they 
were glad to accept the invitation of the republicans to 
form the Union party, which then became dominant and 
held control of the state government for several years. 
The course of Mr. Conness in 1861, in trying to prevent 
a combination of the Union men, his ardent advocacy of 
the bulkhead bill and his position as the favorite of the 
lowest class of professional politicians in the state, were 
serious drawbacks to his advancement, but he had his 
zealous supporters, and he appeared as an aspirant for 
the senatorship in 18G3. His principal rivals were T. 
G. Phelps and A. A. Sargent, both old republicans and 
then members of congress. The caucus of union mem- 
bers of the legislature balloted many times before any 



344 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

candidate could obtain a majority. While matters were 
in this situation, a friend of Mr. Phelps tried to buy 
one of Sargent's men. The proof of the attempted 
bribery was conclusive, and it destroyed Mr. Phelps' 
chances for that occasion, and as his adherents generally 
were bitter against Sargent for the exposure, enough 
went over to Conness to give him the prize, and he thus 
obtained the chief control of the federal patronage for 
the next six years. His senatorial colleague during 
most of that time was- James A. McDougal, who, on ac- 
count of his adherence to the democratic party and his 
dissipated habits, had little influence in political affairs 
at Washington. 

For the purpose of strengthening his own influence at 
home, Mr. Conness undertook to manage the distribu- 
tion of the state as well as the federal offices. The first 
election of a state administration for a term of four years 
under the amendments to the constitution adopted by 
the people in 1862, was now to be held. Mr. Phelps 
was not a candidate, and Mr. Sargent wanted to be gov- 
ernor, and was fairly entitled to the place, but Mr. 
Conness, by the help of his senatorial position, obtained 
control of the state convention and made up a ticket so 
as to leave as little influence as possible for Mr. Sargent. 
Among the republican friends of Mr. Sargent claiming 
seats in the convention was Frank Pixie}', an old repub- 
lican and a brilliant orator. He held a proxy from San 
Francisco: but Mr. Conness, for the purpose of excluding 
him, secured the adoption of a rule that no person should 
hold a proxy without the consent of the majority of the 



THE SIL VER ERA. 345 

delegation from the county. The majority were against 
Pixley, and he was excluded. A considerable part of 
the business of the convention had been transacted when 
Pixley presented himself with a proxy from San Ber- 
nardino. 

The Conness faction then tried to adopt a rule that no 
person should hold a proxy, except from a count}- of 
which he was a resident. This trick in convention man- 
agement was new and base, but did not succeed. Pixley 
took the platform to speak upon the question, as his 
rights were involved. The large delegations from San 
Francisco and Sacramento, consisting in considerable 
proportion of low ruffians, stamped and yelled so that 
the speaker's voice could not be heard. After saying a 
few words he ceased to make a noise, but continued to 
work his mouth and gesticulate as if he were delivering 
an oration. Exhaustion and curiosity got the better of 
the rowdies, and as their noise declined Pixley began to 
speak about the civil war, and that topic had such an 
overwhelming interest, that even those, who hated him 
most, wanted to hear his remarks. The national cause 
then, two months before the victories of Yicksburg and 
Gettysburg, looked very dark, and whoever could say an 
encouraging word to the Union men was welcome. Pix- 
ley's eloquence soon restored order and commanded ap- 
plause. Having secured a hearing, he spoke wittily of 
the situation of himself and other original republicans, 
who were excluded from a Union convention represent- 
ing a party of which two thirds were republicans, organ- 
ized to sustain a republican national administration, and 



346 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

he soon had the convention in a roar of laughter. Then 
he turned his attention to business. Pointing to the 
ruffians who had drowned his voice, he said he knew 
them ; he recognized among them men who had thrown 
rotten eggs at him when he delivered republican speeches 
before his party obtained control of the state govern- 
ment ; they were professional ruffians, and not too good 
to murder for money; their admission to a state con- 
vention was a disgrace to the cause; and they were 
fit tools to be used against him as they had been. 
This invective was notoriously true, and was answered 
with howls of rage, and even threats of violence, by the 
subjects of it; but they were soon subdued by the over- 
whelming applause of the majority. Pixley's triumph 
was one of the greatest that orator}* could achieve ; but 
the oration itself had much reference to circumstances 
that could not be appreciated by readers generally with- 
out long explanations, and even if it had been reported 
in full, as it was not, would not have much interest now, 
though to those present at the convention and familiar 
with the previous political history of the state, it showed 
wonderful mastery of many varied and strong passions. 
Sec. 171. 1864. The winter of 1863-4 brought only 
ten inches of rain, or less than half the average, and as 
the previous season had not brought two thirds of the 
average, the crops of grass and grain in 18G4 were very 
scant. More than one fourth of the farm animals in the 
state died of starvation, and several southern coast counties 
saved only one in three of all their neat cattle. This 
was a great disaster to the farmers; but San Francisco 



THE SILVER ERA. 347 

had her compensation from other sources. The silver 
yield of Nevada was $10,000,000, an increase of nearly 
one third over the previous year. Besides, the placers 
of Idaho and eastern Oregon attained high activity, 
producing together $6,000,000; and with these helps, 
the exportation of treasure reached $55,000,000, a gain 
of $9,000,000 over 1863, and of $15,000,000 since 1860, 
when nearly the whole supply of the precious metals 
passing through San Francisco came from California. 
The population of the state increased 9500 by immigra- 
tion, and 1050 new houses were erected in the city. 
Among the prominent buildings of the year were Dono- 
hue, Kelly k, Co.'s bank, on the south-east corner of 
Sacramento and Montgomery streets ; Maguire's Academy 
of Music, on the north side of Pine street, below Mont- 
gomery; and the Toland Medical College, on Stockton 
street, near Chestnut. The long bridge, extending a 
mile across Mission Cove, on the line of Fourth and Ken- 
tucky streets, was completed ; the grading of Broadway, 
between Kearny and Montgomery, with a cut in one 
place sixty feet deep through the rock, was finished at a 
cost of $30,000 for that one block ; an ordinance was 
passed to widen Kearny street; a wharf, a thousand 
yards long, extending out from the shore at Alameda 
Point to deep water was built to connect the town of 
Alameda by cars and ferry-boat with the city ; and the 
Bay View turnpike gave convenient access to South San 
Francisco. 

The legislature of 1863 had authorized San Francisco 
to give $600,000 of her bonds for an equal amount of 



348 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

stock in the Central Pacific Railroad and $400,000 for 
so much stock in the Western Pacific ; and the proposed 
gifts, when submitted to popular vote, were approved; 
but the companies were not under the control of San 
Francisco capitalists ; the Central Pacific threatened com- 
petition to the road from Sacramento to Folsom, owned in 
San Francisco, and there was a general belief that the 
Central Pacific would never be built, and that conse- 
quently the stock would never be worth anything, and 
might even bring heavy pecuniary liabilities on the city. 
The supervisors, under the influence of such opinions, 
stubbornly refused to issue the bonds in compliance with 
the act of the legislature, and as the city had the means 
to carry on a protracted litigation, and might even suc- 
ceed in getting the next legislature to repeal or modify 
the previous action, a compromise was agreed upon by 
which the supervisors should give $450,000 to the Cen- 
tral Pacific, and $250,000 to the Western Pacific and 
get no stock or other compensation. Subsequent events 
proved that this compromise was a great mistake, for the 
stock in the Central Pacific would have been worth four 
times its cost. 

Sec. 172. Gold Currency. This year saw also the 
end of the struggle in the legislature to force a currency 
of legal tender notes upon the state. In 1863 the spe- 
cific contract act had been passed, providing that a writ- 
ten agreement made for the payment of money in any 
particular kind of currency recognized as legal tender 
by the government of the United States might be en- 
forced specifically by judicial decree. The object of this 



THE SILVER ERA. 349 

was to enable business men to conduct their transactions 
in gold coin, and it succeeded. There was much hosti- 
lity to this statute, under the supposition that it was 
inconsistent with patriotism, and many speculators com- 
plained that the state was seriously injured by excluding 
cheap money; but the general judgment of San Francisco 
rejected these ideas as unsound, and by the influence of 
the city the specific contract act and the gold currency 
were maintained. Some attempts for repeal were made 
in later years, until the federal supreme court, in one 
of its decisions, laid down the broad principle that a con- 
tract for payment of any kind of legal tender money 
must be enforced in all parts of the United States, 
whether in writing or not, thus superseding the specific 
contract act of California. 

Sec. 173. Lincoln Ile-ehcted. The presidential elec- 
tion of 18G4 awakened a strong feeling in San Francisco. 
The democrats demanded peace, which it was generally 
believed could not be obtained by diplomacy without a 
division of the country into two nations, and all the 
great evils that must necessarily follow such a result; 
and when, on the eighth of November, the republicans 
learned that they had carried every loyal state, the city 
was filled with enthusiasm, which was increased by the 
news of the capture of the rebel cruiser " Florida." 
When evening came, there was a grand celebration. 
Numerous bonfires, illuminated windows, torches, roman 
candles and rockets, filled the streets with a blaze of 
light, and a brilliant moon beamed in an unclouded sky, 
while a procession of four thousand men, with flags, 



350 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

transparencies and numerous bands of music, marched 
twenty abreast through the principal streets, singing 
patriotic songs, cheering the newspaper offices, the dwell- 
ings of prominent republicans, and the ladies who, upon 
the sidewalks or in the windows, waved their handker- 
chiefs in congratulation. A cannon at the head of the 
procession halted at brief intervals to add the roaring qf 
its thunder to the general rejoicing. It was a scene 
never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Its 
participants believed the victory won at the polls was 
not less important to the future welfare of the country 
than any yet won in the field of arms; and when they 
were sure it had been won, their exultation was intense. 
They now counted confidently on the near approach of 
the ultimate triumph over the rebellion that had been 
prepared for years in advance ; that had been on the 
verge of success, and that had required for its defeat, 
exertions the like of which had never been made before. 
But the presence of one man was especially missed — one 
w T hose voice had encouraged them in the beginning of 
the contest, had cheered them in the dark days of disas- 
ter and defeat, had opened their hearts and their purses 
for the sanitary fund, and had always been read}' with 
inspiriting eloquence when liberty or union demanded 
his service. Starr King had died in March, and was 
buried in the 3'ard of his church on Geary street, the 
city ordinance forbidding burials in the midst of the 
city being set aside in that special case, so that the 
sight of his tomb might serve as a daily reminder of him 
and of his words and works to the people. 



THE SIL VER ERA. 351 

Sec 174. 1805. The capture of Richmond, the 
overthrow of the rebellion, the restoration of the federal 
authority over all the southern states, and the final ex- 
tinction of slaveiy in our continent, were received with 
great rejoicing in San Francisco, and when, a month 
later, the great-souled president, who had saved the 
Union, was assassinated by a southern fanatic, a mob 
collected hastily in the streets and, before the police 
could prepare for them, entered several democratic news- 
paper offices, scattered the type and broke the cases. 
This was the first mob to injure property in San Fran- 
cisco, and the city treasury had to pay for the damage 
afterwards. Xo person was attacked. 

The influx of people from the Atlantic states to avoid 
the dangers, the excitements, and the disagreeable sights 
common near the seat of war, ceased, and in its stead, so 
many Californians went east to look after their relatives 
or property, that for the first time since the American 
conquest the number of passengers departing by sea ex- 
ceeded that of the arrivals. The confidence in the future 
of the Comstock mines declined. The silver yield of 
Nevada was about as much as in the previous year, but 
no new bodies of ore were discovered, and those pre- 
viously opened were certainly approaching exhaustion. 
At the end of the year the aggregate market price of the 
mines on the Comstock lode was little more than $5,- 
000,000, or about one fifth of what it had been two years 
and a half before. Besides, though the yield was large, 
the dividends were scanty, and the assessments exceeded 
them in amount. 



852 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

In many respects, however, the business of the city 
was highly profitable. The placers of Idaho and eastern 
Oregon had nearly reached their highest productiveness. 
The rainfall of the winter of 1864-5 was twenty- four 
inches, and the grain crop was so abundant that Cali- 
fornia gained recognition as an important source of sup- 
ply for the bread of Europe. The exportation of mer- 
chandise amounted to $15,000,000, more than three 
times as much as it had been ten years before. There 
was a large increase in the clip of wool and in the plant- 
ing of new vineyards. Many new houses were built, 
including important additions to the Lick, Occidental, 
and Cosmopolitan hotels, which, in their size, as well as 
in the convenience of their plans, the elegance of their 
furniture, the management of their servants, and the ex- 
cellence of their tables, were superior to a like number of 
hotels in any other city save New York, and equal to that. 
The bridge across Mission Cove, on the line of Fourth 
and Kentucky streets, nearly twelve hundred yards-long, 
was built, at an expense of sixty thousand dollars, thus 
furnishing access by a short, level, clean and solid road 
to Potrero Point, which had previously been reached by 
a detour of several miles, passing near the Mission, on a 
hilly road, dusty in summer and muddy in winter, along 
the southern shore of Mission Cove. The construction 
of this bridge was an important advance towards filling 
in mud flats covering five hundred acres. 

Sec. 175. Fire Tdegra/ph. The electric fire-alarm 
telegraph was established, to give notice of fires more 
precisely as to place and more promptly as to time than 



THE S1L VER ERA. 353 

could be done by the watchmen who had been main- 
tained, and who could not see the flames inside of houses, 
nor when they broke out beyond the hills, nor even, on 
the low land near the City Hall, when the city was cov- 
ered with dense fog, as it is a hundred evenings or more 
in the year. This was an important step towards the 
overthrow of the volunteer fire department, and was re- 
sisted by strong political influences, and by numerous 
crimes such as incendiary fires, false alarms, breaking 
the fire-alarm boxes, and cutting the wires; but they 
failed in their purpose. 

Sec. 17G. Railroad Purchase. The Central Pacific 
railroad company commenced work in 1863, at Sacra- 
mento, finished its road to near Dutch Flat, and found 
that the Sacramento valley road, from Freeport, fifteen 
miles below Sacramento, to Folsom, where it connected 
with the road to Shingle Springs, was a troublesome 
competitor, taking much of the Washoe freight and nearly 
all the passengers to or from Virginia City, and exer- 
cising a dangerous political influence. A bill introduced 
in the Nevada legislature to give one million dollars to 
the railroad which should first reach from the Sacramento 
river to the state line, was welcome to the capitalists in- 
terested in the Folsom road, who were confident that 
they would gain the prize; and was opposed by the 
friends of the other route. If the first railroad to Vir- 
ginia City had come from Folsom, the Central Pacific 
would have lost much of its profitable traffic, and to 
secure protection against the numerous dangers of this 
rivalry, the directors of the Central Pacific bought up 

23 



354 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the majority of the stock of the Sacramento valley road. 
The transaction was considered a great triumph for 
them. 

Sec. 177. Earthquake of ISO 5. An earthquake, more 
severe than any felt in thirty years before, visited the 
city on the eighth of October, cracked the walls and 
plastering of some weak buildings, frightened many per- 
sons, some of them so much that a hundred or more re- 
turned to their former homes in the eastern states, for 
fear of something worse next time, and caused an uneasy 
feeling in the real estate market for several months. 

Sec. 178". City Slip Debt. In this year the city was 
burdened with a debt of a million dollars, imposed be- 
cause of official blunders committed in the management 
of the city slip sale in 1853, and in the litigation about 
it two years later. Very soon after the sale, a serious 
panic struck the real estate market ; the winter was not 
favorable either for mining or farming; the receipts of 
gold and the arrivals of passengers fell oft ; shipping de- 
creased; rents fell; business was dull as compared with 
previous briskness ; and the purchasers were soon sick of 
their bargains. But they had made their first payment 
of nearly three hundred thousand dollars, and when the 
second payment of about six hundred thousand dollars 
fell due two months after the sale, they still hoped for a 
revival of business, and besides they did not see how 
they could avoid payment without sacrificing all that 
they had paid. After the lapse of another period of two 
months, when the last payment of three hundred thou- 
sand dollars was to be made, they generally refused, 



THE STL VER ERA. 355 

though nearly all had taken possession of their lots. 
Their lawyers told them there was a flaw in the title; 
that the ordinance ordering the sale was never legally 
passed ; that when the full board of assistant aldermen 
consisted of eight members, four affirmative votes could 
not pass an ordinance, even when one of the seats was 
vacant by resignation. The city tried to cure this de- 
fect, by confirming the ordinance, and as possession had 
been taken and most of the price paid, a valid confirma- 
tion was all that the purchasers had a right to demand ; 
but they preferred to get their money back. Their 
policy was to wait to be sued for the last payment 
claimed under their notes given to the city for the lots; 
and their plea in defense was that they had received no 
consideration, the title being void, and that a void title 
could not be confirmed. The legislature could have 
remedied the defect, but the money was wanted. This 
litigation rendered it certain that these lots would not 
be filled in and built upon as expected, and injured the 
value of lots on Commercial street — which ran through 
the middle of the city slip — between Davis and San- 
some. The construction of wharves elsewhere had ac- 
commodated shipping; other streets, wider than Com- 
mercial, had been built up later, and were provided 
with better houses ; the buildings on the lower part of 
this street put on a look of ruin and decay; many of 
them were vacant; and instead of being, as it had been 
a few years before, the liveliest and the most cheerful, 
it became the most disconsolate part of San Francisco. 
The purchasers having gained the decision that no 



356 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

title passed, brought suit, for the money paid; and though 
they were not entitled in justice to recover, yet the 
supreme court, after five or six years of litigation, gave 
decrees in their favor. But before the matter was closed 
up, a new era of prosperity had commenced, and the 
purchasers agreed to compromise, taking the lots and 
something more than they had paid — allowance being 
made for interest money. Bonds for one million dollars 
were issued to thirty-five of the purchasers who recov- 
ered judgment. Six others commenced suit subse- 
quently; but the city lawyers made a plea not tried 
before — they averred that the city had never legally 
received the money, though the supreme court had 
assumed in the previous judgment that the city council 
had appropriated the money. But proof was furnished 
that the ordinance appropriating the money received 
from these sales had been passed by both boards of alder- 
men on the same day, and in the second board had not 
obtained unanimous consent, whereas such consent was 
necessary if passed on the same day; and the supreme 
court held that as the money had not been appropriated 
in compliance with the technicalities, therefore it had 
never legally come into the possession of the city treas- 
urer, and that when paid out it was not the money of 
the city but of the city slip purchasers, and they might 
follow it if they could. This decision saved one hun- 
dred and ninety thousand dollars to the city, and when 
considered from the standpoint of justice and reason, 
was as absurd as the other. In one case the purchasers 
who had paid three fourths of the price and had taken 



THE SIL VER ERA. 357 

possession of the lots were permitted to refuse the offer 
of the city to make a perfect title to the property; and 
in the other, citizens were told that the payment to the 
city treasurer was void, because the ordinance appro- 
priating the money to various purposes was defective. 
The city creditors paid with money thus illegally appro- 
priated ought to have sued the city for second payment, 
on the ground that they had never been paid legally; 
and a judgment in their favor against the city would 
have completed the circle of absurdity and injustice. 
Sec. 179. 1866. The year 1866 was marked by 
the tearing down of the buildings on the west side of 
Kearny street, for the purpose of widening it; by the 
success of the state harbor commissioners in getting 
possession of the entire water front from the wharf 
corporations, which had held control there for fifteen 
years; by the construction of the extensive wharves 
and other improvements of the Pacific Mail company, 
at the foot of Brannan street, to accommodate their 
steamers, running to China and Panama; by the cut- 
ting down of a hill containing 300,000 cubic yards on 
Rincon Point, to obtain material for filling in water 
lots near the Pacific Mail wharves; by the opening of 
Woodward's garden as a pleasure resort for the gen- 
eral public; by the completion of the Sutter street 
railroad, giving convenient access to a considerable 
area in the western addition; and by the establish- 
ment of the paid fire department and the abandon- 
ment of hand fire-engines, those drawn by horses and 
driven by steam being substituted. The Bay View 



358 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

railroad and the stone dry- dock on Hunter's Point 
were commenced. Building in the southern part of 
the city, and land speculation, were very active. The 
sum of the sales of land within the city limits Avas 
$13,000,000. The rainfall, though not above the 
average, was so distributed as to time that the crops 
were large. The exports of merchandise were $17,- 
000,000, nearly $3,000,000 more than in any previous 
year. The yield of the Comstock lode was $15,000,- 
000, but only one tenth was dividend; and as no new 
bodies of ore were opened, speculation in silver shares 
was dull, and the sales in the San Francisco board 
amounted to only $32,000,000, or about two thirds as 
much as in 1865. The state gained 4,800 inhabitants 
by the excess of arrivals over departures. 

Sec. 180. Subsidies. The numerous subsidies given 
at previous sessions of the legislature to railroads, and 
the division of the profits among relatively few indi- 
viduals, stimulated schemes for getting more money 
from the public treasury in the same way. One of 
these created a lively excitement throughout the state, 
and led to the overthrow of the republican domination 
in the state government. A bill was passed by the 
legislature to pay $52,000 annually as interest on 
bonds of the Sacramento and Placerville railroad, and 
$90,000 on the "Western Pacific. The former road, 
only thirty-six miles long as projected, and twenty-six 
were already completed, had already obtained $300,- 
000 in El Dorado and Placerville bonds, and to give 
$1,000,000 from the state treasury for building only 



THE SIL VER ERA. 359 

ten miles additional road of no service save to a small 
district, inhabited by not one twentieth of the inhab- 
itants of California, was outrageous. The proposed 
gift to the Western Pacific was scarcely less objection- 
able. That company had already obtained a loan of 
§2,000,000 in federal bonds for thirty years, a gift of 
800,000 acres of federal land, §250,000 from San 
Francisco as a gift, and §400,000 in Santa Clara and 
San Joaquin county bonds in payment for an equal 
amount of the company's stock. These subsidies 
might be put down as worth certainly §2,500,000 in 
cash, and as the route was only one hundred and 
twenty-six miles long, nearly level, through a well 
settled part of the state, and was the western termi- 
nal section of the transcontinental railroad, the aid 
already supplied by the government was abundant. 
The daily press protested against requiring the people 
to pay §2,850,000 for the benefit of a few individuals, 
under the pretense of securing the construction of 
roads that would be built without further subsidy, or 
that if built would render no benefit to the state gen- 
erally; but the legislature was under the control of a 
corrupt lobby, and the bill was adopted by both 
houses. Now, as on other occasions, the public inter- 
ests were saved by the veto power. Governor Low 
protected the state treasury against this excessive lib- 
erality of the legislature. 

Sec. 181. Paid Fire Department. The volun- 
teer fire department had rendered great service to the 
city, and had even been indispensable for its preserva- 



360 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tion, but the time had coine when something better 
was needed. In early years, when families w T ere few, 
when the rich men were young and active, when 
nearly all the merchants had their homes in or near 
their stores, and when all their property was exposed 
to the flames, the fire companies had included many 
of the best citizens, but when those men advanced in 
age, moved out to the suburbs, and put their money 
in lands, mines, canals, railroads, steamboats, insur- 
ance companies and banks, they retired from active 
service with the fire companies, and other less scrupu- 
lous men took their places. The engine houses be- 
came the homes of a disreputable class, always ready 
to run with the machine in payment for free lodgings. 
As the city grew, and fires became more numerous, 
the conduct of these men became more troublesome, 
and the danger from the insubordination greater, so 
the people's party purchased steam fire-engines and 
discharged the volunteers, not without bitter opposi- 
tion from those, who liked the old system for the 
plunder or political influence Avhich it gave them. 

Sec. 182. Kearny Street Widened. The most not- 
able change in San Francisco in the course of 1866 was 
the work done in widening Kearny street, which had 
been previously forty-five and a half feet wide, and 
now thirty feet more taken from the western side 
were added, from Market to .Broadway, a distance of 
nearly a mile. At that time the district west of 
Dupont and north of Washington was much more 
important in the business of the city relatively than 



THE SIL VER ERA. 361 

it is now, and people going from that district to any 
place south of Bush street went by way of Mont- 
gomery street, which, because of its wide sidewalks 
and level grade, was the preferred route for persons 
passing between the two leading residence districts of 
"North Beach" and " South Park," as the northern 
and southern parts of the city were sometimes desig- 
nated, and for that reason Montgomery street had in 
1853 become the fashionable promenade, and after- 
wards acquired the most elegant shops, and leading 
hotels, and its lots became the most valuable in the 
city. 

It did not offer room enough, however, for the busi- 
ness that thronged it, and the rapid growth of the city 
demanded more space for the future. The legislature 
passed a general act to authorize the widening of 
streets in San Francisco, with special reference to 
Kearny street, though without mention of it; in 1865, 
commissioners were appointed to assess benefits and 
damages, and a suit to restrain them from acting was 
defeated, and there was a lively demand for Kearny 
street lots at improved prices. The next year their 
report was adopted, and the demolition of the houses 
along the western side of the street and the construc- 
tion of others in their places were commenced. When 
the assessments were made lots near Washington 
street were worth twice as much a front foot as near 
Market, but before a year had gone by it was evident 
that the southern part of the street would get much 
more than an equal share of the benefit, though this 



3G2 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

result could not have been foreseen with sufficient con- 
fidence to serve as a basis of the official estimates. 
The new street had some important advantages over 
Montgomery. It had a greater length of level ground; 
it was six feet wider; it was nearer the residence dis- 
tricts; its buildings on the west side were more ele- 
gant, as a class, and better adapted for the sale of 
elegant merchandise; it was certain that the eastern 
side of the street would be rebuilt in equal, if not 
superior style; it was exempt from the throng of 
stockbrokers who filled the sidewalks on Montgomery 
street, and it connected directly with Third street, 
which might thus be considered as an extension of it. 
Under these influences, Kearny superseded Mont- 
gomery as the preferred street for promenaders and 
fashionable shops. The accounts for widening the 
street were closed in 1868, and the total expense was 
five hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, while 
the aggregate pecuniary benefit to the lot owners 
directly interested was not less than three million 
dollars. 

' Sec. 183. Outside Lands. The title of the city to 
about four thousand acres of land west of Larkin 
street having been perfected, ordinances were passed 
to convey it to the parties in possession and to give 
them deeds for it. In 1853, the city as successor of 
the pueblo of Yerba Buena, presented its claims to 
the federal land commission for four square leagues, 
about seventeen thousand acres, under the Mexican 
law, giving so much for common or other public pur- 



THE SIL VER ERA. 363 

poses to every pueblo or town. The claim was con- 
firmed in 1854 by the land commission for about ten 
thousand acres, including all that part of the penin- 
sula north of the Vallejo line, which started near the 
intersection of Fifth and Brannan streets and ran 
through the summit of Lone Mountain to the ocean. 
Both parties, the city on one side and the land agent 
of the federal government on the other, appealed from 
this decision, and in course of time the case reached 
the federal circuit court, which on the eighteenth of 
May, 1865, filed a decree confirming the claim to the 
city to four square leagues above high water mark, 
"for the benefit of the lot-holders under grants from the 
pueblo, town or city of San Francisco, or other com- 
petent authority, and as to any residue, in trust for 
the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the city." An 
appeal was taken from this decision on behalf of the 
federal government to the United States supreme 
court; but on the eighth of March, 18GG, congress 
passed an act confirming the decree, and granting to 
the city all the title of the United States to the tract 
described in the decision of the circuit court, with the 
exception of lands needed for federal reservations, 
subject to the conditions that all of this land not 
needed for public purposes, or not previously disposed 
of, should be conveyed to the persons in possession. 
The only opposition to the city claim recognized by 
the law was that by the United States, and when 
congress granted the federal title to San Francisco, 
there was no basis for litigation, so the United States 



364 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

supreme court dismissed the appeal, and the decree of 
the circuit court stood as the tru e basis of the title. That 
decision gave the land not already disposed of "in 
trust for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the 
city;" the act of congress gave it for the benefit of 
"the parties in the bonajide actual possession thereof." 
The inhabitants were many; the people in possession 
were few, but they had money, political influence, or- 
ganization, and the legislature passed an act providing 
that everybody in possession of not more than one 
hundred and sixty acres, should keep it all. The 
supervisors passed the Clement ordinance recognizing 
the ownership of the people in possession, and the 
McCoppin ordinance, giving deeds to them. Thus a 
domain which might have been sold for millions of 
dollars, or given in small lots to ten thousand poor 
citizens, anxious to secure homes, was bestowed upon 
a few. The giving of such large areas was not in har- 
mony with the town system of Mexico, and the posses- 
sory titles within the limits of the pueblo claim were 
void under the American law; nor was their recogni- 
tion consistent with sound public policy, but it re- 
ceived the sanction of the legislatures, councils and 
courts. The city out of all this vast domain reserved 
a park of one thousand acres, mostly drifting sand, 
and some lots for public squares and buildings. 

Sec. 184. 1867. The winter of 1866-67 had 
brought nearly one half more than the average supply 
of rain, and among its consequences were a very abun- 
dant crop of wheat and the exportation of merchan- 



THE SIL VER ERA . 365 

dise to the value of §22,000,000 — an increase of §5,- 
000,000 over 1866, and §8,000,000 over 1865. The 
merchandise exports of San Francisco had now reached 
a level with the gold production of the state. The 
gold yield of Idaho had commenced to decline, but 
it was still about §5,000,000 annually, and the 
loss was more than compensated by the rise of the 
silver yield of Nevada to §18,000,000, and the distri- 
butions of §3,800,000 silver dividends in San Fran- 
cisco, the last figure being twice as great as in 1866. 
The large bonanza at Gold Hill came into view, and 
gave birth to the hopes, which were realized a few 
years later, that the profits obtained by the Gould k 
Curry and the adjacent mines from 1863 to 1866 
would be surpassed. The sales of mining stocks were 
tw 7 ice as large in the aggregate as in the previous 
year, and the San Francisco board found it necessary 
for the accommodation of its customers to move to 
new rooms in the Merchants' Exchange on California 
street. The completion of that building and of the 
Bank of California, and the transfer of the business 
connected Avith the two stock boards, fixed the finan- 
cial center on California street, between Battery and 
Montgomery, where land soon rose to be worth §3000 
per front foot, a price considerably greater than that 
demanded previously. The work of rebuilding the 
west side of Kearny and relaying the pavement and 
sidewalk had now advanced so far, the street had at- 
tracted so much traffic, and its lots advanced so much 
in value, that the improvement of widening it had 
become an assured and high success. 



366 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The fever of land speculation was so active that 
the old steam excavator could not keep pace with the 
demand for grading, so a new one was imported and 
set to work. The bridge a mile long across Islais 
Cove, and the Bay View railroad, were completed, 
thus furnishing cheap access to an extensive district 
on the southern water front. The stone dry-dock at 
Hunter's Point was finished at the same time. The 
growth of" the city was most active south of Market 
street, and the steam cars which had been running on 
that street to the Mission for seven years, were now 
stopped in accordance with the general demand, and 
horses were substituted. The sale of the Beideman 
tract of one hundred and sixty acres, north of Turk 
street and west of Larkin, at auction in small lots, 
enabled hundreds to buy homesteads at prices much 
less than the land commanded a few years later. 
The claim of the De Haro family to the Potrero was 
defeated in the United States supreme court, and the 
people in possession were protected in their titles. A 
contract was made for a sea wall of stone along part 
of the water front, at the rate of $278 per lineal foot, 
implying that the entire cost of the projected wall 
would be about $1,500,000 a mile. In this year the 
Almshouse, Trinity church, and the Howard Presby- 
terian church on Mission street near Third, were fin- 
ished. 

Sec. 185. Railroad Progress. The progress of the 
Central Pacific railroad became a matter of great in- 
terest in 1867 to San Franciscans, who had previously 



THE SIL VER ERA. 367 

believed that it would not in many years surmount the 
Sierra Nevada. Now they saw a strong probability 
that the iron track would be finished across the conti- 
nent within a few years, thus reducing the time 
between San Francisco and New York from twenty- 
four to seven or eight days for ordinary travel, and 
relieving passengers from the discomforts of a long 
sea voyage, including two weeks in the tropics. This 
was the great work to which they had long looked for- 
ward as necessary to the proper development of the 
industry and commerce of California, and as the time 
for its completion drew near they were filled with 
confidence that the city and state were about to enter 
a new era of prosperity more brilliant than any 
known in the past. Their confidence stimulated all 
kinds of business, and the general feeling, especially 
in the real estate market, was one of high exhilara- 
tion. 

Sec. 186. Democratic Victory. The republican 
party which had held control of the state government 
for six years, and had a majority of 18,000 at the 
presidential election in 1864, lost its power by nomi- 
nating George C. Gorham for governor. At the .pre- 
ceding session of the legislature he had urged the 
adoption of the bill to give $2,850,000 to the Western 
Pacific and Placerville railroad companies, and thus 
had given serious offense to influential republican 
journals and to many of the voters; but, on account 
of his talent for public speaking and partisan man- 
agement, he was the favorite of the professional poli- 



368 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ticians in the party, and they thought they could defy 
all opposition. They over-estimated their power. 
An independent republican ticket hostile to railroad 
subsidies was nominated; the democrats adopted a 
platform denouncing subsidies as a great danger; a 
campaign pamphlet was published with a colored 
map, showing the immense areas of land in Cali- 
fornia granted by congress to aid the Central Pacific, 
the Southern Pacific, and the California and Oregon 
railroads; and though these lands were for the most 
part of little value, and the grants of them were 
moderate aids to enterprises of much service to the 
development of the industry and commerce of the 
state, still the maps were well fitted to increase the 
popular discontent provoked by the unreasonable 
plans for money subsidies. The republicans allowed 
themselves to be put in the position of advocates of 
subsidies, and they were defeated. H. H. Haight, 
democratic candidate for governor, and a legislature 
of the same party, were elected on the platform of 
"economy, purity and reform." 

For the first time in ten years the democrats suc- 
ceeded in defeating the candidate of the taxpayers 
or people's party for mayor. At the preceding ses- 
sion of the legislature the municipal election had 
been transferred by the republicans from the spring 
to the fall, so that it was held on the day fixed for 
choosing state and federal officers. The pretext for 
making the change was that there were too many 
elections; but a strong, if not the predominant, motive 



THE SILVER ERA. 3G9 

was the desire to increase the influence of the na- 
tional party organization in the choice of the city 
officials, and thus break down the local people's party 
in San Francisco. The republicans altered the law, 
expecting to be the gainers by it, as for years their 
ticket had been the chief rival of the taxpayers'; 
but the blundering of the state republican convention 
in its platform and nominations, and the skillful use 
by the democrats of the opportunity offered to them, 
gave to the latter party the lead in San Francisco (as 
well as in the interior of the state), and Frank Mc- 
Coppin, their candidate for mayor, became the head 
of the city government, the only person elected to 
that place between 1857 and 1874 inclusive, under 
nomination by a convention wearing the name of a 
national political party. 

Sec. 187. 1868. The exhilaration which had rilled 
the San Francisco real estate market in 1867 became 
an intoxication towards its end, and so continued 
through the next year. Land speculation, especially 
in the southern part of the city, was extremely active. 
The real estate sales ran up to twenty-seven million 
dollars, an increase of ten million dollars over the pre- 
vious year. Several scores of homestead associations 
bought up large tracts, going, in some cases, six miles 
out on the peninsula, or nearly as far beyond Oakland, 
and sold the lots at double or treble the cost to igno- 
rant and deluded purchasers, who made their payments 
in small monthly installments, while two or three spec- 
ulators usually divided the bulk of the profits. It 

24 



370 HIS TOM Y OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

was now certain that the railroad across the continent 
would be finished before 1870. Two great corpora- 
tions, endowed by congress with immense grants of 
land and loans of bonds, means that were not availa- 
ble until considerable distances had been built, work- 
ing from the opposite ends, and entitled to all they 
could build respectively, were running an unexampled 
race in laying track at the rate of a mile a day or 
more. The attention of the nation was fixed upon the 
race, the road, and California. The gain of the state 
by immigration in the twelve- month was thirty -five 
thousand, surpassing anything since the first few years 
after the gold discovery. 

The railroad from Vallejo to Sacramento was fin- 
ished, and the journey between the metropolis and the 
political capital of the state was reduced from eight 
hours to four and a half. This road was also connected 
by a track four miles long from Adelante to Suscol 
with the Napa valley road, thus giving continuous 
steam communication from San Francisco to Calistoga, 
which thus became a prominent pleasure resort — for a 
time the most prominent on the coast. The comple- 
tion of the railroad from Sacramento to Marysville, and 
the subsidy of three hundred thousand dollars in the stock 
of the San Jose railroad, given by the city of San Fran- 
cisco to the southern Pacific railroad company to aid the 
construction of thirty miles of road from San Jose to 
Gilroy, and the completion of the stone dry-dock at 
Hunter's Point, all contributed to the land excitement. 

Sec. 188. Earthquake of 1868. The year 1868 



THE SIL VER ERA. 371 

is memorable for the severest earthquake felt in the 
city since the American conquest. It came on the 
twenty-first of October, about eight A. m.; killed five 
persons by throwing- loose bricks from the tops of 
buildings upon them as they were walking in the 
street, and led as many more to break bones by jump- 
ing out of second and third-story windows. No 
person was severely injured in a house, nor was the 
better class of structures damaged , but a dozen brick 
buildings which had weak foundations, on the made 
ground were cracked so as to be untenantable; and 
many people affected by the news of the great Peru- 
vian earthquake on the thirteenth of the previous Au- 
gust, with its tidal wave that swept a city to destruc- 
tion, were seriously frightened, so that hundreds slept 
in the public squares for several nights. Fears were 
entertained that there would be a serious decline of 
real estate and a decrease of population, but the scare 
passed off in a few weeks ; and since that time earth- 
quakes have been less frequent and severe than before. 
Sec. 189. San Joaquin Valley. The winter of 
1867-68 brought a rainfall of thirty-eight inches, or 
half ns much more than the quantity necessary for a 
good crop, and the consequence was an exceptionally 
good harvest. The state had now had abundant rains 
for four successive seasons, giving great profit to the 
farmers, and leading to a doubling of the area under 
cultivation. The spread of tillage was especially notice- 
able on the eastern side of the San Joaquin valley, be- 
tween the Stanislaus and Merced rivers, a region pre\ U 



372 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ously considered almost valueless for any purpose save 
pasturage. The soil is a sandy loam, and the rainfall is 
one third less than in San Francisco; so that in dry 
years the grain crops if not irrigated are poor, but for 
four seasons the rains had been so abundant that the 
clay soils near the coast had been almost unmanage- 
able on the account of the excess of water, and the 
farmers were driven to try the sandy plains. Lands, 
which for years had found no purchasers at the federal 
price of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, were 
now in demand at twenty dollars. Half a million 
acres were bought up in two years. Instead of being 
worthless, as was supposed, it was found to be in some 
respects the best wheat land in the state ; for, though 
not so rich as some other, it would produce more in 
proportion to the labor devoted to it. A single plow- 
man, with a gang plow, with six shares, and six spans 
of horses, could work eight or ten acres a day; whereas, 
on heavy, hilly land, one plow is as much as a man 
can manage. The cultivation of this land made it 
necessary to build a railroad to get access to it, and 
the increase in the value of the farms exceeded the 
cost of the road. In 1866, Stanislaus county was the 
seventeenth wheat county in the state, producing only 
one hundred and fiftv thousand bushels; and in 1868 
the first, producing two million three hundred thou- 
sand bushels. 

Sec. 190. 1869. Among the notable events of 
1869 were the completion, in May, of the connection 
by rail between Sacramento and New York; the com- 



THE SIL VER EH A. 373 

pletion four months later of the Western Pacific road 
from Sacramento to Oakland; the culmination of the 
real estate excitement in the spring, and a consequent 
grand panic in real estate; an intense excitement 
about the newly discovered silver mines at White 
Pine, and the disappointment of nearly all the ad- 
venturers who went thither to make their fortunes; 
the failure of a scheme to extend Montgomery street 
in a direct line from Market to the Potrero; the open- 
ing of New Montgomery street parallel with Third; 
the cutting of Second street through Pincon Hill; 
the sale by the state of the tide and submerged lands 
on both sides of Hunter's Point; the introduction of 
free postal delivery ; the building of the Grand 
Hotel, the Pacific bank, the Savings and Loan bank, 
Friedlander's block, the rolling mill and the Cali- 
fornia theater; and the transfer of the slaughter 
houses from Bran nan street beyond Mission creek to 
the present Butchertown, built on piles near the south 
shore of Islais Cove. 

Sec. 191. Pacific Railroad. The driving of the 
last spike of the Central- Union Pacific railroad near 
Salt Lake, on the ninth of May, giving a continuous 
iron track from Sacramento to New York, was recog- 
nized and celebrated as one of the great events of the 
age, but to San Francisco it did not bring the antici- 
pated benefits. Her citizens had calculated upon too 
much, and had invested their money on the basis not 
of realized results, but of extravagant expectations; 
and when the completion of the road compelled a 



374 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

comparison between results and expectations, it was 
found that the prices of land generally, and especially 
in the suburban districts, were far beyond any perma- 
nent demand. Everybody had wanted to sell, and 
nobody to buy; and a general and severe panic en- 
sued. Many of the losers gave vent to their vexa- 
tion by complaints that the Pacific railroad was a 
damage to San Francisco; that the peninsular posi- 
tion of the city did not permit her to profit by rail- 
roads; that she had been built up by steamboat traffic 
and could not prosper after it was destroyed; that the 
cars from the Atlantic states could not be expected to 
come round the southern arm of San Francisco bay, 
that therefore some town on the eastern or northern 
shore of the bay — either Vallejo, Benicia, Oakland 
or Saucelito — must be the main terminus of the rail- 
ways of the Pacific slope; and that as the network of 
tracks would extend every year, so would the relative 
importance of San Francisco decline. For thirteen 
years the prices of real estate and the amount of sales 
had risen steadily and rapidly; and now so soon as 
the great road for which California had prayed as 
necessary for the proper development of her natural 
wealth, and for the foundation of a new era of pros- 
perity to surpass that of the gold discovery, was 
completed, there was a panic more severe than that 
which accompanied the decline of the placers after 
1853. The opening of the railroad between Sacra- 
mento and Oakland by way of Stockton, in Septem- 
ber, made no perceptible improvement in the situa- 
tion. 



THE SIL VER ERA. 375 

The Central Pacific company was considered hostile 
to San Francisco, whose capitalists had refused to 
subscribe to its stock when it was about to commence 
work, whose representatives had opposed county 
subsidies to it in the legislature, whose council had 
refused to issue the bonds ordered to be given to it by 
the legislature, and whose public journals had been 
cool or unfriendly to it. The company had its chief 
office at Sacramento, and had acquired a large tract of 
land, supposed to be valuable for terminal purposes, at 
Oakland. 

While business was in confusion on account of the 
extravagant over-speculation in lots — a mistake that 
deprived a large majority of the industrious, well-to- 
do people of a considerable part of their imaginary 
wealth, and reduced to poverty many of those who 
had gone into debt, there were serious disturbances in 
various branches of business, in consequence of the 
transition of transportation from steamer to rail. 
Much of the travel and freight between New York 
and the interior of the state ceased to pass through 
San Francisco, which thus lost a considerable part of 
her revenue. 

Sec. 192. Vallejo Railroad. There was an oppo- 
sition to the Central Pacific railroad between San 
Francisco and Sacrameuto, but it came from Vallejo. 
The California Pacific railroad from that place to the 
state capital had been opened in February, and a fast 
boat had been purchased to run between Vallejo and 
the metropolis. In time, cost and comfort, this route 



376 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Was preferable to any other; but the influence of this 
opposition to the Sacramento railroad company was 
not less dangerous to San Francisco, in the opinion of 
many business men. Distinguished engineers in the 
army, navy, coast survey and civil life, had publicly 
expressed the opinion that tnere was a much better 
place for a city at Vallejo or Benicia than at San 
Francisco. The soil in the neighborhood is richer; 
the anchorage more secure; the natural site and water 
front better; access to the heart of the Sacramento 
valley more convenient, and the water deep enough 
for large vessels. That place grew rapidly; there 
was a lively demand for its lots; the construction of 
the railroad wharves and warehouses gave facilities 
for shipping wheat, and in the crop year of 1869-70 
thirty-three vessels were loaded there for Europe. 
The bold and active men controlling the California 
Pacific company, supported by the European capital- 
ists who had advanced the money to build the road, 
spoke loudly and confidently of the other roads they 
would construct to make Vallejo the great railroad 
center of the state, of the factories to be built, of the 
combinations to be made with steamship companies 
whose ocean steamships should have the terminus of 
their route at Vallejo. Fears that these assertions 
might be verified helped the panic. 

Sec. 193. Silver Mines. The production of silver 
by the state of Nevada was .only fifteen million 
dollars in 1869, the same as in 1868, and four millions 
less than in 1867; but there was some compensation 



THE STL VER ERA. 377 

for this in the discovery of the mines at White Pine 
in the previous year, of a large deposit of argentifer- 
ous chloride, some of it yielding ten thousand dollars 
a ton, surpassing in richness and facility of reduction 
the croppings of the Ophir mine when the wealth of 
the Comstock was opened. Before much exploration 
could be done on Treasure Hill, the intense cold of 
winter at an elevation of nine thousand feet above the 
sea checked the work while the miners were still 
drifting in an immense mass of silver ore as rich as 
any mentioned in the records of Mexico or Peru; and 
California and Nevada waited impatiently for spring 
to permit an active resumption of labor and the re- 
moval of the doubt whether the Comstock lode was to 
be reduced to relative insignificance — a result pre- 
dicted confidently by some of those who had visited 
the new place. So soon as the roads were open for 
travel there was a rush of adventurers to White Pine, 
where they found promises of a wonderful silver yield. 
This district had made more progress in three months 
than Washoe had in three years, and the ore was 
more than three times as rich. The production of the 
year was four million dollars. Those who were too 
late to get hold of rich mines looked to city lots for 
their profits. Treasure City, Hamilton and Sherman 
became important towns, and leading speculators in 
real estate were millionaires in the general estimation 
for a brief period; but they and the mine owners were 
soon doomed to disappointment. The chloride depos- 
its did not last long. Mining engineers said there was 



378 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

no fissure vein; there was no lode running far and 
deep like the Comstock. The miners cut through the 
few large ore bodies into the barren rock; the smaller 
deposits promised little profit; the towns collapsed; 
the throng of adventurers ceased, and White Pine 
suddenly sank from the second place among the silver 
districts of Nevada to the fourth. 

Sec. 194. Street Changes. The success in widen- 
ing Kearny street having, at an expense of less than 
six hundred thousand dollars, added more than four 
million dollars to the value of lots on Kearny and 
Third streets, led to various schemes to bring up 
Montgomery street. The first of these was to extend 
it in a straight line to the Potrero, a distance of a 
mile, cutting diagonally through the blocks on the 
line. This scheme was carried through the supervis- 
ors and passed over the mayor's veto; commissioners 
were appointed, and they made an elaborate report, 
with estimate of the expense, but the engineer, in 
laying off the map of the work, assumed incorrectly 
that the blocks intersected were exactly of the size 
proposed in the original survey. The consequence was 
that the line of the new street was not straight, but 
showed a little offset like a saw-tooth at every street 
crossing. This defeated the enterprise, causing serious 
loss to those who had bought property on the line, in 
the expectation of the completion of the work. 

So soon as the project of extending Montgomery 
in a straight line was abandoned, another scheme came 
to the surface. This was to open New Montgomery 



THE SIL VER ERA. 379 

street, between Second and Third, and parallel to 
them from Market street to the bay. A company of 
capitalists bought up the land on the line from Mar- 
ket to Howard, opened the street so far, and built the 
Grand Hotel to give value to the adjacent property 
and attract business men to the street ; but the enter- 
prise was unprofitable. They had expected that the 
land w r ould be worth fifteen hundred dollars a foot, 
and it did not bring as much as its cost to them, which 
was four hundred dollars, besides lying idle for a long 
time. One result of the opening of this new street, 
and of the Second street cut was that the value of 
Second street, between Howard and Market, previ- 
ously a good street for fashionable shops and a favorite 
promenade, was injured seriously — almost destroyed. 
The idea of extending New Montgomery street south- 
ward from Howard was abandoned when the first sec- 
tion of it proved unprofitable. 

Another street scheme was the Second street cut. 
John Middleton, a prominent dealer in real estate, and 
owner of a large lot on the corner of Second and 
Bryant, believed that if Second street were cut down 
through Tvincon Hill to such a grade that heavy 
teams could pass over its line to the vicinity of the 
Pacific Mail wharf, the southern end of the street 
would become the site of an active business, and real 
estate there would greatly advance in price. To carry 
his enterprise through, he secured an election to the 
assembly, and there, by his influence as a member of 
the legislature, notwithstanding the protests of the 



380 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

lot-owners on Bincon Hill against being assessed for 
the cost of work which would do them, serious dam- 
age, the bill was passed for reducing the grade be- 
tween Folsom and Bryant — that is, cutting a deep 
ravine through Bincon Hill. The work was done, 
but the predicted benefits failed to make their appear- 
ance. The cut or ditch, at one place sixty feet deep, 
has ugly steep banks, which have slid down in wet 
weather ; the falling dirt has destroyed the sidewalks; 
the despoiled lot owners have refused to keep the 
pavement in repair; heavy teams have found it more 
convenient to pass through other streets in going to 
and coming from the Pacific Mail wharf; Bincon Hill 
has lost much of its beauty and all its pre-eminence 
as a district for fashionable dwellings ; the most active 
advocates of the scheme made nothing by it ; and the 
direct expense of the improvement was three hundred 
and eighty-five thousand dollars, while the loss to 
citizens beyond all benefits was not less than one mill- 
ion dollars. Many had to pay for the errors of judg- 
ment committed by a few. 

A scheme still wilder in its character was brought 
forward and urged by meetings of lot-owners upon the 
legislature as a highly meritorious measure. This 
was to make a nearly uniform grade on Stockton 
street, from Geary to Clay, for the purpose of giving 
convenient access for promenaders on that street, be- 
tween the northern and southern parts of the city. 
This scheme implied the cutting of a ditch the width 
of the street for a distance of half a mile, with a depth 



THE SILVER ERA. 381 

in one place of eighty feet, in the heart of the city, 
leaving the houses along the line, not only without 
access from the street, but on the edge of a cliff which 
would probably tumble down after the first good soak- 
ing in the rainy season. The scheme was defeated 
and then abandoned. 

Sec. 195. 1870. San Francisco built 1200 new 
houses, gained 10,000 inhabitants, and prospered in 
many ways in 1870, but there was general complaint 
of hard times, because the real estate market had not 
recovered from its panic of the previous year, and 
serious fears were felt of the powers and purposes of 
the two great railroad companies. The average 
monthly sales of real estate, which had been $3,500,- 
000 in the first half of 1869, fell to §1,300,000 in 
1870. There was a lack of confidence in the ability 
of the capital invested in San Francisco to overcome 
the combinations and influences that might be brought 
to the aid of Vallejo and Oakland, the advocates of 
which towns claimed that, as they had at the begin- 
ning of their career taken a large share of the loading 
of wheat for exportation, so they would in a few years 
receive cargoes from abroad, and would continue to 
gain business indefinitely. The California Pacific 
road was run with such speed that it took nearly all 
the local traffic; and the company owning it, sup- 
ported by prominent European capitalists, was recog- 
nized as a formidable rival of the Central Pacific. 
These were now the two great inland transportation 
companies of California. One was confessedly work- 



\ 



382 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ing to build up Vallejo; the other composed of 
citizens of Sacramento, was suspected of an in- 
tention to make its chief terminus at Oakland. A 
metropolis without control over, or even an interest 
in any of the great transportation companies bringing 
trade to it — a trade for which ambitious rivals, not 
without power, were making greedy bids — was in an 
awkward situation. 

Among the new buildings of the year were St. 
Patrick's church (to which Peter Donahue gave a 
chime of bells, the first in the city), Bancroft's build- 
ing, and the "White House. The grading of Yerba 
Buena square was commenced as a preparation for 
the erection of a new city hall; and a beginning was 
made in the improvement of the Golden Gate Park. 
A lottery for the benefit of the Mercantile Library 
was authorized by the legislature in defiance of the 
constitution, and conducted to a successful termina- 
tion with a net profit of half a million. 

The city took a holiday to witness the blowing up 
of Blossom rock, a submarine reef, the top of which 
was five feet below high tide, on the line of Davis 
street, and three quarters of a mile from North Point. 
A coffer-dam or hollow cylinder was built on the reef; 
the water having been pumped out, a shaft was sunk 
down into the rock and galleries were dug for a length 
of one hundred and forty feet and a width of forty 
feet, at a depth of thirty-seven feet below low tide. 
The miners having completed their part of the work, 
and twenty-one tons of powder having been distrib- 



THE SILVER ERA. 383 

uted in the drifts, on the twenty-third of May, in 
accordance with public notice, and within sight of 
myriads of people in boats and on the hills, the charge 
was exploded, a column of water one hundred feet in 
diameter was blown several hundred feet up into the 
air, and that was the end of the most dangerous ob- 
struction to commerce in the bay of San Francisco. 
The method of submarine excavation used on Blossom 
rock, invented by A. W. Von Schmidt, a San Fran- 
ciscan, was first applied in making the entrance of 
the Hunter's Point dry-dock, and is an interesting 
addition to the science of engineering. 

The rainfall of 1869-70 had been nineteen inches, 
less than the amount needed to make a good crop; so 
the harvest was scanty and the farmers generally did 
not prosper. Railroads were built from Pctaluma to 
Santa Rosa, from Marys ville to a point twenty -five 
miles beyond, on the California and Oregon route, 
and from Los Angeles to Wilmington. The silver 
mines of Eureka (Nevada), and the borax deposits 
found at various places in the same state, attracted 
much attention in this year, and offered opportunities 
for the profitable investment of several millions of 
capital. 

Sec. 196. Census of 1870. The federal census 
taken in this year reported a total population of 149,- 
473 in the city, though a year before the estimates in 
the directory had made out a population of 170,000. 
There was a common opinion that the census agent 
had omitted many persons, but his work was official, 



384 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and in various respects more carefully done than the 
other. It showed that of the entire number of in- 
habitants, 75,754 were natives of the United States, 
73,719 foreigners; 136,059 whites, 12,022 Chinese, 
1330 of negro blood, 54 Indian, and 8 Japanese. 
About ninety people in a hundred were white, nine 
Asiatic, and one African. The number of whites 
born in California was 36,565, or more than a fourth 
of all the whites; but most of them were minors, for 
only two years before, among 25,000 registered voters 
there were not half a dozen natives of the state. 
The two sexes were about equally divided among the 
children under sixteen; but over that age there were 
52,102 males and 38,316 females, or three to two, and 
if a count had been made of those over twenty-one 
the disproportion would have been found considerably 
greater. 

Sec. 197. French-German War. The war between 
Germany and France, for the military and political 
leadership of continental Europe, excited an intense 
interest in San Francisco, where the former country 
had thirteen thousand six hundred and the latter three 
thousand five hundred of her natives. The Irish, 
generally, and some Americans, sympathized with the 
French; while the Italians, and many of the Ameri- 
cans of the Anglo-Saxon stock favored the Germans, 
so there were large parties on each side. When it 
became evident that France was badly beaten, the 
French residents poured out their money with great 
devotion to aid their country, and gave about three 



THE SIL VER ERA. 385 

hundred thousand dollars — far more in proportion to 
their number than the Californians had given to the 
sanitary fund in the American civil war. These con- 
tributions astonished France by. their liberality, and 
were acknowledged by the government repeatedly. 
Madame Mezzara, a French lady long resident of San 
Francisco, who, having gone east to serve as a nurse 
of the sanitary commission in the American civil war, 
and upon the invasion of her native land had gone to 
its assistance in the same capacity, was made the 
direct recipient of some of the Californian contribu- 
tions; and her representative character, as well as her 
experience and efficient labor, gained for her a recog- 
nition from the government, which gave her a special 
gold medal and other honorable decorations; and the 
San Francisco Art Association, in which her husband 
was a director, received from the French government 
a present of a large and valuable collection of plaster 
casts, taken from the original marbles in the Louvre. 
The Germans did not feel the necessity of making 
sacrifices so great, the losses being less on their side, 
and their government better able to provide for its 
sufferers, but they collected one hundred and thirty- 
eight thousand dollars. A number of young men of 
both nationalities gave up lucrative positions to join 
their relatives in arms. 

Sec. 198. 1871. The California Pacific railroad 
company, having completed its branch road to Marys- 
ville, annexed the Napa Valley road, and announced 
its purpose of building roads through Sonoma Valley to 

25 



386 HISTOR Y OF SAN FRA N CISCO. 

Russian River, and from Woodland northward on the 
west side of the Sacramento river to Red Bluff, now 
acquired the boats of the California Steam Navigation 
company that controlled nearly all the traffic of the 
inland navigation of the state, and also bought the 
Petaluma Valley railroad. About the same time the 
capitalists of the California Pacific road formed a com- 
pany to build a road to run from the northern part of 
the Sacramento Valley to Ogden, and thus compete 
with the Central Pacific. It is impossible to find out 
how -much of this plan was seriously meant, but be- 
fore anything further could be done, the directors of 
the Central Pacific, to rid themselves of a bothersome, 
if not a dangerous rival, bought the majority of the 
shares in the California Pacific company, which then 
ceased to give trouble as a competing road. In the 
winter of 1871-72 portions of the railroad w^est of 
Sacramento and south of Marysville were washed 
away by a flood, and the interruption of the traffic 
was a serious damage to the road and its terminus. 
The Marysville branch has never been restored, and 
Vallejo, which had grown with great rapidity for the 
preceding four years, came to a standstill, and has not 
yet regained its former prosperity. 

"When the time approached for electing a governor 
and other state officers, the republican leaders, taking 
a lesson from their defeat in 1867, nominated Newton 
Booth, an enemy of railroad subsidies, for the head of 
their ticket, and under his lead they recovered power; 
but, on account of a difference of opinion in reference 



THE SIL VER ERA. 387 

to the policy to be pursued by the state towards the 
railroad companies and other corporations, before the 
close of his term he became the leader of the Inde- 
pendent or Dolly Yarden party, which elected him to 
the federal senate. 

On account of the uneasy feeling among the citizens 
in reference to the terminal business of the railroad, 
inquiries were addressed to the directors frequently 
whether they intended to bring their cars into the city, 
and they replied that they could not afford to run 
seventy miles round the southern arm of the bay with 
their regular trains from the east ; but if the means to 
build a bridge at Pavenswood were suppliedj so that 
the distance would not be greater than by way of Oak- 
land, the cars would come into the city. Thereupon 
a proposition was introduced into the board of super- 
visors to take a popular vote upon the question 
whether three million dollars should be given as a 
subsidy to aid the construction of a bridge, but the 
ordinance was voted down. 

The Pavenswood scheme having been abandoned, 
for a time at least, a plan was brought forward for 
the construction of a bridge from Potrero Point or 
Hunter's Point to Alameda, a distance of five miles. 
The ba}^ is there in mid-channel fifty feet deep, and 
the current strong ; and it was estimated that a perma- 
nent bridge would cost fifteen million dollars; and as 
neither the company, the city, the state, nor congress, 
wished to spend any such sum, that idea came to 
nothing, although it was urged persistently by sev- 
eral public journals. 



HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Sec. 199. Heaves. Horace Hawes, a millionaire, 
died in March. Some months before his death, he 
had made a deed, giving nearly all his property, val- 
ued at several millions, for the endowment of a uni- 
versity at Redwood, and a school of the mechanic arts 
in San Francisco. The gifts were accompanied by 
complex and burdensome conditions and, being sub- 
ject to modification by the grantor at any time dur- 
ing his life, were in the nature of bequests, and sub- 
ject to the same need of cod firm ation by a probate 
court as a will. He was a stingy, quarrelsome, sus- 
picious, unpopular man ; and in his will allowed out of 
his large fortune not more than enough to his wife 
for a merely comfortable maintenance of herself and 
son, though the latter was to receive about thirty 
thousand dollars after he should reach the acje of 
thirty years. More than ninety-five per cent, of the 
estate w T as to be given for public purposes. Mrs. 
Hawes was esteemed as much as he was disliked, and 
when she contested the will, the jury promptly ren- 
dered a verdict that he was not of sound mind, though 
he was in no respect insane. His deed was in keeping 
with its conduct for the previous twenty -five years, 
during all of which time he had been a successful 
business man, an acute lawyer, a prominent citizen of 
San Francisco, considered worthy to be intrusted with 
difficult and important public affairs. He was ap- 
pointed prefect in 1849, and elected state senator in 
1856 and 1864 ; and as senator he was author of the 
consolidation bill or city charter of 1856, and of the 



THE SIL VER ERA. 389 

act for the registration of voters — two of the most 
original and beneficent statutes ever enacted in Cali- 
fornia, His superior capacity was recognized and his 
influence accepted in the legislature by his associates, 
notwithstanding their indifference or dislike to him. 

Sec. 200. 1872. The continuation of the real 
estate panic, the popular agitation against the grant 
of Goat Island to the Central Pacific railroad com- 
pany for a terminus, and a greater excitement in the 
mining stock market than any before observed, were 
among the events of 1872. The legislative appor- 
tionment required by the constitution to give repre- 
sentation in the legislature proportioned to the num- 
ber of inhabitants in the various counties, as shown 
by the census of 1870, w r as defeated by the mining 
counties with help and encouragement from Sacra- 
mento and Stockton; and San Francisco, which was 
entitled to one fourth of the members of the senate 
and assembly, had to wait two years before the bill 
could be passed, and she could obtain justice. 

Sec. 201. Goat Island. The relation of the city 
to the Central Pacific company continued to be a 
matter of absorbing interest. The supervisors having 
refused to give a subsidy for a bridge at Pavenswood, 
the company urged its application previously made to 
congress for a permission to occupy Goat Island. 
Little attention had been given to the idea of making 
a terminus at the island; but now the opinion pre- 
vailed that the establishment of the terminal busi- 
ness there, with a bridge to the Oakland shore, 



390 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and numerous warehouses and wharves on the island 
would result in serious, if not immense damage to 
San Francisco. The press and public meetings de- 
nounced the scheme, and a committee of one hundred 
prominent citizens was organized to take proper meas- 
ures for protecting the public interests supposed to be 
endangered by the bill. 

Goat Island had been reserved by the government 
of the United States for military purposes, and the 
federal army engineers in response to an inquiry 
whether there was any objection to the occupation of 
the island as a railroad terminus, replied that such 
occupation would seriously diminish the military value 
of the position which might become very important 
if some hostile vessel should succeed in passing 
through the Golden Gate. The coast survey engi- 
neers, when requested to give their opinion, said that 
any bridge or solid causeway from the Oakland shore 
to Goat Island would check the currents along the east- 
ern shore of the bay, cause the deposition of a large 
amount of sand and mud, diminish the tidal area, 
reduce the amount of tide water flowing out of the 
Golden Gate with the ebb, and lead to a shallowing 
of water on the bar, thus injuring the value of the 
harbor. 

While matters were in this condition, a delegation 
of citizens from St. Louis, interested in the Atlantic 
and Pacific railroad, which had a franchise and land 
grant from congress to cross the continent about the 
thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, came to San Fran- 



THE SILVER ERA. 391 

cisco to solicit a subsidy for their road, which they 
promised should enter the city by the peninsula. 
This party was warmly welcomed, and the committee 
of one hundred received their propositions with much 
favor; but after a few weeks the idea began to prevail 
that the Atlantic and Pacific company had no sub- 
stantial foundation, and that the subsidy of $10,000,- 
000 demanded by them would be thrown away. A 
division of opinion in the committee followed; the 
minority adhered to the plan of aiding the Atlantic 
and Pacific company indirectly if not directly; the 
majority advised a compromise with the Central Pa- 
cific. It was agreed that the latter company should 
abandon the application for Goat Island, build a 
bridge at Bavenswood, and construct a road along: 
the bay shore east of San Bruno mountain to Mission 
cove within eighteen months, make the main termi- 
nus of the Trans-Continental, San Joaquin Valley and 
Southern Pacific roads in the city, and when author- 
ized by law extend a track from South Beach to 
North Beach, and deliver merchandise along the ex- 
tension without extra charge. The city, on the other 
hand, was to give a subsidy of $2,500,000 in her 
bonds to the company. This compromise, failing to 
command the favor of the people or of the supervisors, 
was abandoned, and in its place a scheme was brought 
forward to give $10,000,000 for the construction of a 
railroad to the Colorado, where it should connect with 
whichever company should first reach that river from 
the other side. After an acrimonious campaign both 



392 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

parties were defeated, a result with which the citizens 
generally have since been well pleased; for the cars 
now run to the Colorado without help from the city, 
and the eastern companies which made loud promises 
in 1873, that they would build hundreds of miles of 
road every year on the southern routes across the 
continent, have for years done nothing. 

Sec. 202. Belcher Bonanza. The greatest excite- 
ment known up to that time in the San Francisco 
mining stock market was caused in the beginning of 
1872 by the discovery of the large size of the rich 
ore deposit opened in the Crown Point and Belcher 
mines in the previous year, and by the simultaneous 
finding of a rich body of ore in the Raymond & Ely 
mine at Pioche. The consequence of these develop- 
ments was an advance that far exceeded anything pre- 
viously observed even among the speculative Califor- 
nians. The ao-are^ate value of the silver stocks on 
the San Francisco market was seventeen millions in 
January, twenty-four in February, twenty-six in 
March, thirty-four in April, and eighty-one in May, 
a gain of sixty-four millions in five months — no slight 
addition to the wealth of a city of two hundred and 
twenty thousand inhabitants in so brief a period. 
Unfortunately, this wealth did not stick. Suddenly 
the fever was followed by a chill; in ten days there 
was a decline of sixty millions, and hundreds that had 
considered themselves rich found themselves bankrupt. 
There was, however, no mistake about the new ore 
bodies. The Gold Hill bonanza yielded altogether 



THE SIL VER ERA. 393 

over eighty millions, and the Pioche district turned 
out eight millions in 1872. The stock sales of 
the year ran up to two hundred millions, or about 
twice as much as in 1871, and four times as much as 
in 1870. 

Sec. 203. Diamond Fraud. The latter half of 
1872 was marked by another excitement which threat- 
ened for a time to throw even the wonderful silver 
mining stocks into insignificance. A report was cir- 
culated that an extensive and wonderfully rich dia- 
mond field had been discovered in the interior of the 
continent, though the precise situation was kept secret. 
One rumor said it was in Arizona, another in Utah. 
The recent opening of the diamond fields of South 
Africa, and the reports of the great wealth amassed 
there by many individuals after a few months of labor, 
prepared the public to be swindled by one of the most 
adroit schemes ever devised to gull an ignorant or 
excitable community. The schemers showed no haste 
or lack of confidence. They went to leading capital- 
ists of San Francisco, brought the alleged discoveries 
before them, showed specimens of the rough diamonds 
— they were stones from Brazil and South Africa, 
bought for the purpose — and proposed the formation 
of a company, with the understanding that the matter 
was to be carefully withheld from tlie public until the 
federal mining law could be amended so as to recoe- 
nize the validity of mining claims for diamonds, and 
to authorize the issue of patents for them. This 
proposition demanded a very trifling advance of 



394 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

money from the capitalists, left its expenditure in 
their own hands, gave abundant time and opportunity 
for investigation, and was so business-like that no 
doubt was entertained of the good faith of the pro- 
moters. The law in reference to patents for mines as 
adopted in 1866 was amended on the tenth of May, 
1872, so that in addition to "gold, silver, cinnabar or 
copper," previously mentioned, it should also include 
"lead, tin, or other valuable deposits." Thus the 
trap was ready, but some of the bait was still lacking; 
so a couple of men went to London, bought a consid- 
erable supply of rough diamonds, including large and 
small, and even some of the diamond dust obtained 
from South Africa, and salted the stuff in the place 
selected in Colorado — for it was in that territory, and 
not in Arizona or Utah that the scene was laid— and 
came on to San Francisco, where their friends had 
got up a party, including several gentlemen who 
pretended to be mining experts, and Henry Janin, a 
mining engineer of good repute for honesty, capacity, 
and knowledge. 

The party having arrived upon the field found the 
diamonds where they had been salted, and found them 
with an ease that should have provoked distrust. 
Janin had no experience in diamond mining; his sus- 
picions had not been aroused ; he assumed that he had 
a diamond field before him, and wrote his report on 
that basis. He did not explain the formation or the 
precautions to prevent deception by salting, but de- 
voted much of his attention to the discussion of the 



THE S1L VER ERA. 395 

question whether with a field so extensive as that over 
which the diamonds had been found, and their abun- 
dance, as shown by the fact that for the time employed, 
without any facilities for washing, the value of the dia- 
monds obtained was one hundred dollars for every hour 
of each person, the price would not fall to a trifle when 
working: should be commenced on a lanje scale with 
every needful preparation. The capitalists interested 
believed the report, and the stock of the diamond com- 
pany, which was not to be put upon the market until 
all doubt of any mistake had been removed, was nearly 
ready to be offered to a highly excited public, when the 
exposure came. Information of the situation and char- 
acter of the diamond diggings had been sent to Clarence 
King, who, under order of the federal government, had 
made a hasty geological survey of the country along 
the fortieth parallel of latitude, including the diamond 
region, and as he had seen none of the diamond-bear- 
ing rock formation there, he suspected a fraud, visited 
the place without delay, and after a brief examination 
satisfied himself that the ground had been salted. He 
found diamonds where the ground had been dug, es- 
pecially about large stones that served as marks, but 
none elsewhere. Some of the Colorado diamonds hav- 
ing been previously shipped to London, were there 
recognized as African stones. The story of the pur- 
chases of African and Brazilian diamonds months be- 
fore was published. The exposure coming almost sim- 
ultaneously from two sources threw a chill Upon the 
excitement, and the fraud came to an end before the 



396 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

general public could be victimized. Those who suf- 
fered were nearly all rich men. It was so managed 
that there was no judicial investigation of the affair; 
but three or four prominent mining speculators had 
the credit with the general public of being parties to 
the plot, though they protested that they had been 
deceived. 

Sec. 204. 1873. The transfer of the residence of 
the Californian directors of the Central Pacific rail- 
road from Sacramento to San Francisco, the expendi- 
ture of a large sum for filling in the railroad terminal 
lands in Mission cove, and the construction of a large 
boat to transport laden freight cars across the bay, 
were accepted as conclusive evidences that the appre- 
hensions previously entertained for years, of hostility 
on the part of the directors to the metropolis, were 
greatly exaggerated, if not baseless. The men who 
owned a controlling interest in the twelve hundred 
miles of railroad having become citizens of San Fran- 
cisco, their interests were considered as identified with 
those of the city. A large part of the opposition 
shown by the officials and press of the city towards 
them had been the result of distrust; a natural effect 
of ignorance of the men, perhaps not unmixed with 
chagrin that such an immense enterprise had fallen 
into the hands of residents of a provincial town, while 
the capitalists of the metropolis had refused to take 
any part in it, and had predicted ruin for those en- 
Ofaofed in it. 

Five years had now elapsed since the completion of 



THE SIL VER ERA. 397 

the road, and the fears of the friends of San Fran- 
cisco, and the predictions of ruin by its enemies, had 
made no progress towards fulfillment. The city never 
grew more rapidly. According to Langley's estimates, 
there was an average gain of about eight per cent, a 
year in the population; bnt no reference to statistics 
was necessary to get conclusive evidence of the gen- 
eral prosperity. New buildings, larger and more costly 
than any before erected were numerous. Though some 
of the outside land could not be sold for the prices 
paid in 1868, yet lots in the leading business streets 
and in the preferred residence districts commanded 
higher figures than ever before. While San Francis- 
co thus flourished, the towns for which rivalry had 
been claimed gained no metropolitan character. Val- 
lejo, Benicia, and Saucelito, lost the importance gained 
in public estimation by a brief excitement among a 
portion of the community. Oakland grew rapidly, 
but its business was suburban, though many of its 
property holders did not give up the hope of an inde- 
pendent traffic, to come with the completion of their 
artificial harbor. 

Sec. 205. Oakland Harbor. The protest of San 
Francisco against the grant of Goat Island to the rail- 
road company was so emphatic that the bill, after 
adoption in the lower house of congress, was aban- 
doned in the senate. For the purpose of providing ;i 
terminus without sending the cars across the bay in a 
boat, congress ordered a survey of San Antonio creek 
at Oakland, to ascertain whether a deep harbor could 



398 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

be constructed there. The army engineers made a 
favorable report, and submitted a plan for an artificial 
harbor three miles long, three hundred yards wide, 
and about twenty-five feet deep, and this project then 
adopted has since then advanced far towards comple- 
tion, appropriations having been made for it nearly 
every year out of the federal treasury. 

Sec. 206. Dolly Varden. The approaching elec- 
tion of another federal senator to succeed Cornelius 
Cole, whose term was to expire in March, 1875, gave 
an additional interest to the political canvass of 1873, 
when all the assemblymen and half the senators were 
to be chosen. The republican leaders committed 
blunders similar to those of 18G7, when the state 
went over to the democrats; but the result now w r as 
the triumph of a third party, self-styled Independent, 
and nicknamed the Dolly Yarden, which promised to 
protect the state against monopolies, to regulate the 
fares and freights on railroads, to establish a state 
system of irrigation, and to manage the government 
for the benefit of the people. The new organization 
received much aid from the secret order of grangers 
or patrons of husbandry which, though almost un- 
known before suddenly spread through the agricul- 
tural districts; and notwithstanding its denial of parti- 
san purposes and its exclusion of partisan subjects 
from the proceedings of its lodges, became indirectly 
the source of a strong political influence. The inde- 
pendent party proved to be stronger than either of 
the others in San Francisco, and the state generally; 



THE STL VER ERA. 399 

but failing to get complete control of the state govern- 
ment, could not carry out its favorite reforms, and two 
years later it finally dissolved, leaving its members to 
return to the national parties with which they had 
previously associated. It succeeded in electing Newton 
Booth, its most eloquent speaker, to the federal sen- 
atorship. 

Sec. 207. 1874- The year 1874 was marked by 
a large immigration from the East ; by the opening up 
of the consolidated Virginia bonanza in the Com stock 
lode; by a stock excitement that surpassed those of 
1863 and 1872; by the publication of James Lick's 
deed giving nearly all his property for public pur- 
poses; by the removal to San Francisco of the chief 
offices of the Central Pacific railroad company from 
Sacramento; and by the commencement of work on 
the Palace Hotel. Amomr the minor events of the 
twelvemonth were the discovery of serious and dis- 
graceful frauds in the offices of the license collector, 
coronor, public administrator, and assessor, and the 
increase of the police force from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty men. 

Sec. 208. Large Immigration. The gain of the 
Pacific states and territories by immigration was 
forty-six thousand — eleven thousand more than in 
1873 or 18G8, when the number of passengers had 
been greater than in any year since 1852. The main 
causes of this throng were the depression of busim 
on the Atlantic slope, the stimulus given to industry 
in California by the large production of silver in 



400 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Nevada, and the favorable condition of agriculture. 
Such prostration of business in the eastern states had 
never before been suffered. Thousands of manufac- 
turing establishments had closed or discharged some 
of their workmen ; the construction of railroads had 
almost ceased; wages had fallen; the supply of labor 
far exceeded the demand at the current rates ; the 
market price of land had declined greatly; and there 
had been a decrease of one third in the immigration 
from Europe. On the other hand, California was 
in the midst of exceptional prosperity. Within 
three years there had been an increase of nearly one 
half in the area under cultivation. The extension of 
the railroad to the southern end of the San Joaquin 
valley had given facilities for transporting to market 
the products of a large region practically inaccessible 
before; and farmers were now convinced that good 
crops of grain could be grown on large areas previ- 
ously supposed to be almost worthless. The winter 
of 1873-74 brought a good supply of rain, and was 
followed by an abundant wheat harvest. With the 
help of this stimulus, one hundred and forty miles of 
railroad were built in this year. 

Sec. 209. Consolidated Virginia Bonanza. The 
Gold Hill bonanza had now reached the height of its 
splendor, and the Crown Point and Belcher were pay- 
ing immense dividends. In three years and a half the 
two mines had taken out more than forty million dol- 
lars, a result previously unapproached in the experi- 
ence of Washoe. While they were still at the flood 



THE SIL VER ERA 401 

tide of their prosperity, the still greater bonanza of the 
Consolidated Virginia was found near the northern 
end of the lode, and in May it began monthly div- 
idends of three hundred thousand dollars. Every 
week brought news from the advancing drifts, cross- 
cuts and winzes, and proved the ore body to be larger 
and richer. Experienced miners, who were repre- 
sented as trustworthy experts, expressed the belief 
that the ore in sight would yield fifteen hundred 
million dollars. The excitement was intense: the aof- 
gregate value of the Comstock shares, as indicated by 
the quotations of the market, rose at the rate of a 
million dollars a day for nearly two months, and the 
year closed when this fever or frenzy of speculation 
was near its culmination. 

Sec. 210. Flood and O'Brien. The sudden rise 
of the firm of Flood & O'Brien to great wealth, was 
one of those events which could scarcely occur out of 
San Francisco. J. C. Flood and W. S. O'Brien, had 
for many years kept a saloon, patronized by mer- 
chants and brokers. A good lunch was spread with- 
out charge in the middle of the day for customers; 
and the partners, men of respectable intelligence, 
character and manners, attended in person behind the 
bar. Thus they had lived for ten or fifteen years, 
when they obtained a small interest in a mine at Vir- 
ginia city. Having been introduced to the market, 
customers familiar with the management of the min- 
ing companies gave them good advice, they began to 
make a profit on stock operations and formed a part- 



402 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

nership with J. W. Mackey and J. G. Fair, who re- 
sided at Virginia city, and were miners by occupa- 
tion. Mackey had worked as a blaster for four dollars 
a day. The firm, the name of which continued to be 
Flood & O'Brien after the admission of the two new 
partners, obtained possession of most of the stock of 
the Consolidated Virginia mine, at a time when the 
shares were worth only nine dollars — for some they 
paid only four dollars; and as there were only 10,700 
shares, the whole mine was then worth less than 
$100,000. Its length was 1310 feet, so the cost to 
them was less than $100 a lineal foot; and that ap- 
peared enough to people who considered that, though 
more than a quarter of a million dollars had been 
spent on the property in the previous ten years, it 
had never returned a cent of dividend; that no ore 
worthy of notice had ever been found within its 
limits; and that if it had any ore, the fact could not 
be ascertained without an additional expenditure that 
miofht run into the hundreds of thousands. The 
future proved that $212,000 were required in assess- 
ments before there was airy return. 

Instead of continuing the sinking of the old shaft 
that had reached a depth of only 400 feet in the Con- 
solidated Virginia ground, Flood and O'Brien took 
the cheaper and more expeditious course of running a 
drift from the Gould and Curry shaft, only 800 feet 
from their line and 1800 feet deep. This drift, 1200 
feet below the surface, led to the discovery of the 
bonanza extending the whole length of their mine. 



THE SIL VER ERA. 403 

The property, after having 10,700 shares in 1871, 
was divided into two mines, the Consolidated Virginia 
and California, each of which has now 540,000 shares. 
The two mines, at the prices paid in January, 1874, 
were together worth $150,000,000, equivalent to a 
profit of more than 3000 fold upon the shares for 
which four dollars a share had been paid in 1871. 
The limits of this bonanza, or ore deposit, have not yet 
been found, and it is impossible to predict how much 
longer this wonderful stream of treasure shall pour 
into the pockets of San Francisco, though it has 
already yielded more than $100,000,000, 

Sec. 211. James Lick. The publication of the 
deed in which James Lick conveyed nearly all his 
property, estimated to be worth several millions, to 
trustees, for the benefit of the people of San Francisco 
and California, was received with general satisfaction. 
The gifts were distributed, with much knowledge and 
judgment, for the advancement of astronomy, the es- 
tablishment of a mechanical arts school, a free bath- 
house, an old ladies' home, other institutions for the 
relief of suffering indigence, and the erection of various 
works of art; and after the payment of the specific 
appropriation, including some to his relatives, the res- 
idue of the estate was to be equally divided between 
the San Francisco Academv of Sciences, and the soci- 
ety of California Pioneers. Regret was felt that the 
sum allowed to the relatives was not greater, only 
twenty-six thousand dollars being given in all to his 
son, his sister, his two half-brothers, his two nieces and 



404 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

a nephew, all of whom needed his bounty and had 
good claims upon it. Though the deed was absolute 
in form, it was changed in the following year. 

Sec. 212. 1875. The year 1875 was eventful for 
San Francisco. It brought the culmination of the 
stock excitement that began in the previous summer; 
a new deed from James Lick, giving his estate to the 
people in a new form; the defeat of the Calaveras 
water scheme; the failure of the bank of California; 
the death of Mr, Ralston; the destruction of Virginia 
City by fire; the completion of the Palace hotel; the 
establishment of the bank of Nevada; the opening of 
Montgomery avenue; the advancement of Market 
street near Third to a rivalry with Kearny as a fash- 
ionable promenade; and an immigration larger than 
any since 1850. 

Many circumstances concurred to stimulate immi- 
gration to the Pacific states, and among these the con- 
tinued prostration of nearly all kinds of business on 
the Atlantic side was prominent. Myriads of families 
who had never known want before were now pinched 
for the ordinary comforts of life. The young men, seeing 
no satisfactory future before them in their old homes, 
when looking for new ones were dazzled by the account of 
the marvelous production of the Comstock lode, the 
rapid growth and accumulation of wealth at San 
Francisco, the recent extension of railroads into large 
districts of fertile soil previously inaccessible, and the 
successful establishment in California of various 
branches of industry not practicable in other parts of 



THE SIL VER ERA . 405 

the United States, on account of adverse climatic 
conditions. Under such influences, one hundred and 
seven thousand people came to California in 1875, 
leaving a net gain of sixty-four thousand. 

Sec. 213. Calaveras Water Scheme, On account 
of general, or at least very loud complaint, in several 
influential newspapers, that the prices of the Spring 
Valley company, which furnished all the water dis- 
tributed through the city by pipes, were oppressive 
and extortionate, the legislature had passed an act 
authorizing the municipal administration to provide a 
supply of water, and an elaborate report was made 
upon the sources from which it could be obtained. 
Calaveras valley, situated between two ridges of the 
Coast mountains, in Santa Clara and Alameda coun- 
ties, had been bought up by speculators, and was offered 
to the city for ten million dollars, of which nearly 
half would have been profit to them. The schen'ie 
was defeated by the board of supervisors, and that 
was the end of it. 

While the Calaveras scheme was under considera- 
tion, and when it was supposed that a majority of the 
officials who were to decide upon it were disposed to 
favor it, the daily " Call " and " Bulletin," in the 
course of their opposition, asserted that W. C. Ral- 
ston, president of the bank of California, was the 
head of the scheme to force the bad purchase on the 
city treasury. This charge, not supported at the time 
by any evidence that could be verified by the public, 
gave much offense, provoked angry recrimination, and 



406 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

was followed by other attacks upon Ralston, who was 
accused of having abused his position at the head of 
the leading bank of the state to exercise a corrupt in- 
fluence in political affairs. In many respects Mr. 
Ralston was personally popular, especially with the 
merchants and capitalists generally, and nothing but 
strong confidence of other classes in the good motives 
of the editorial management of the offending journals 
could have saved them from ruin, so fierce was the ani- 
mosity provoked against them. 

Sec. 214. Bank of California. On the twenty-sixth 
of August, the city was about noon astonished by the 
news that the Bank of California had closed its doors. 
So strong was the confidence in its wealth, that peo- 
ple said its only trouble was a temporary scarcity of cash 
which would end so soon as the mint could coin the 
bars of bullion in its vaults. Even when Mr. Ralston 
said the bank had failed completely, and could never 
re-open its doors, credence was denied to him. Ac- 
cording to the reports made not long before, it had a 
capital of five million dollars, and deposits amounting 
to as much more, besides almost unlimited credit. It 
had regularly paid its dividends of about one per cent, 
a month. The public, even the capitalists, who were 
its customers and directors, had not heard of any seri- 
ous losses; failure under such circumstances appeared 
impossible. 

When the directors met after the closing to examine 
the situation, they were dissatisfied with Ralston, and 
requested him to resign his position as president. They 



THE SILVER ERA. 407 

found that the financial condition of the bank was not 
what they had supposed it to be, nor what he repre- 
sented it to be. They had the fullest confidence in 
his capacity and honesty; they knew that he had 
made large sums by speculations and investments with 
different friends before he became president of the 
bank in 1872 (these were the only great financial suc- 
cesses of his life); they did not know that in company 
with less reputable men, he had afterwards lost all his 
individual fortune, and much more; and they supposed 
that his great wealth placed him above the reach of 
any temptation to defraud the bank. He had been 
president three years; the business, the records, and 
the clerks were under his control; and at the meetings 
he submitted false statements, and exhibited money 
borrowed for the occasions, as property of the bank. 
The executive committee being large stockholders, 
had much to lose and nothing to gain by a failure to 
discover his systematic frauds; but suspecting noth- 
ing, they did not employ detectives, and without 
such help they could not have discovered anything. 
"When they found that the bank was insolvent, that 
the president had used millions of its money in his 
personal speculations, and had made an over-issue of 
stock, thus committing a number of felonious offenses, 
they could not do less than immediately request him to 
resign. By any other course, they would have made 
themselves morally, perhaps legally, responsible for 
his misdeeds. Nor did he dare to refuse. 

In the afternoon of the same day, in accordance 



408 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

with his usual custom, he took a bath in the bay at 
North Beach, and while swimming out into the chan- 
nel, seemed to be taken with a fit, and commenced to 
flounder about in the water. A boatman not far off 
rescued him and took him to the shore, while still w r arm 
and breathing, but he was unconscious, and soon died. 
It was generally supposed that he committed suicide, 
but a chemical analysis of the contents of his stomach 
discovered no poison, and the post mortem examination 
of his body indicated congestion of the lungs and 
brain; so it was officially declared that deatii was the 
result of his entrance while very warm into the cold 
water. The coroner's jury rendered a verdict in ac- 
cordance with that supposition; and the life insurance 
companies, which might have saved a considerable 
sum to themselves if they could have proved that he 
committed suicide, made no contest. Death w T as most 
opportune. His frauds were numerous, and the proof, 
though then known to only a few individuals, conclu- 
sive; the punishment would inevitably be severe, as 
the failure of the bank and the consequent panic had 
caused serious loss to the community, and had des- 
troyed many fortunes in and out of San Francisco ; he 
was so extensively known, that under the circum- 
stances it would be almost impossible for him to escape 
alive ; and his great pride would not permit him to 
submit to the degradation from the highest social 
honor to the state prison. There was no other se- 
cure refuge, save death. It came to his relief at the 
right moment, and common opinion assumed that it 



THE S1L VER ERA. 409 

did not come by mere accident, though there has been 
no satisfactory explanation how it did come. 

Sec. 215. Ralston. Mr. Ralston, a native of Ohio, 
born in 1825, received a good common school educa- 
tion, worked for several years at the trade of ship- 
carpenter in building river steamboats, and left that 
occupation when nineteen years of age to become 
clerk in a Mississippi steamer. In 1850 he started 
for California, but stopped at Panama, having found 
profitable business there. He became the agent of 
Garrison k Morgan, owners of a line of steamships 
connecting New York with San Francisco; filled that 
place for several years, and was in 1853 promoted to 
San Francisco, where he was agent for the same firm, 
which then had the steamers " Winfield Scott," "Yan- 
kee Blade " and " Uncle Sam," on the Pacific side. 
His employers were so well satisfied with him that, 
when they opened a bank with Mr. Fretz, they took 
him also as a partner, and all the names appeared in 
the firm of Garrison, Morgan, Fretz and Palston. 
After a lapse of a year the first two drew out, leaving 
the firm of Fretz & Palston. This house had been 
in existence a very brief time, when a panic came and 
brought embarrassment upon a bank in which many 
leading merchants made their deposits, and to which 
they looked for advances. This business was beset 
by serious risks, and the house which had held it re- 
fused to continue in that line. Most of the bankers 
would not face the danger, and others could not com- 
mand the confidence. The position was a difficult 



410 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

one in a city in which there was so much speculation 
and excitement; rare courage, tact, decision and 
knowledge of men and business were needed. Rals- 
ton had them; and the merchants discovered that he 
had. Soon he had the bulk of the mercantile busi- 
ness, and. the more they observed him the stronger 
was their trust in him. 

The firm changed to Donohoe, Ralston & Co. in 
1858, and in 1864 Ralston, with others, planned and 
organized the Bank of California, which immediately 
took rank as the chief bank of San Francisco, and 
one of the loading financial institutions of the United 
States and of the world, for its fame and credit ex- 
tended to Europe and to the commercial cities of 
Asia. It was supposed that he was fairly entitled to 
the office of president, and could have obtained it 
without difficulty, but he gave his influence to elect 
D. 0. Mills, whose reputation, experience, capital and 
influence were not unworthy of the place. Mr. Mills 
being a very reserved man, Ralston had the credit of 
being the leading man in the institution. It was a 
magnificent success from the start, possessing the un- 
limited confidence of the community, and doing an 
immense business. It paid dividends of one per cent, 
per month or more, and its stock was in great de- 
mand among capitalists. Among its stockholders 
were a number of millionaires. Their wealth ,and 
enterprise, the efforts which they made to protect 
their property, and the competition into which they 
were often brought with others by their undertakings 



THE SIL VER ERA . 411 

led to much denunciation by rivals and defeated op- 
ponents, who complained, usually without a particle 
of reason, that the bank ring controled the finance 
and legislation of California and Nevada. 

On account of the large capital controlled by Mr. 
Ralston, and the encouragement given to them, espec- 
ially after the withdrawal of Mr. Mills from the presi- 
dency and business of the bank in 1872, it was the 
custom of men who wished to undertake industrial 
enterprises to go to him. Every day, competent men 
and schemers coming from abroad, brought letters of 
introduction, recommending them to his favor. All 
these he received and heard; some he assisted. He 
was largely interested in the Mission woolen mills, 
the Kimball carriage factory, the Cornell watch fac- 
tory, and many other manufacturing establishments. 
He contributed much to the San Joaquin irrigation 
canal, and to reclamation dykes. He furnished cap- 
ital for opening New Montgomery street, and for 
building the California theatre. He projected the 
Palace hotel, devised its general plan, and with the 
help of his friend Mr. Sharon, built it. It is the 
remarkable monument of a very remarkable man, but 
like most of his other investments, more showy than 
profitable. 

When transacting business, his speech was short 
and sharp. He asked a brief question, insisted upon an 
explicit answer, gave his decision in a word or two, 
and turned to somebody else. The first impression 
was not favorable upon those who had an abundance 



412 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of leisure; but if a man impressed him' favorably, he 
was most kind. He was habitually considerate ; and 
for those whom he liked, and they were numerous, he 
was obliging. No banker in San Francisco had so 
many warm friends and admirers. He regarded it as 
one of the duties of his position to entertain much 
company, and he did this in a princely country man- 
sion, where he had accommodations for a hundred 
guests at a time. He had a dozen carriages, with 
fast horses — fast, but not of the fastest, for he would 
buy no racers or very dear horses — to carry them to 
and from his house, and to serve them when they 
wanted to drive for pleasure. Shortly before his death 
he erected a mansion on Pine street, near Leavenworth, 
for the purpose of keeping up similar style in the city. 
It is doubtful whether the like of such hospitality was 
ever seen before. A rumor, unfounded of course, was 
started in the east that the bank allowed him one 
hundred and fifty thousand a year for the entertain- 
ment of strangers — a report that could never have got 
such a start upon the hospitality of any country save 
California. He gave largely and secretly to many 
charities. The general estimate of him was that he 
had in an eminent degree many of the virtues most 
desirable in a citizen, a neighbor and a friend. 

Sec. 216. Eulogy. It was not until six months 
after his death that certain material facts about his 
management were proved in a judicial investigation, 
in which it appeared that he owed the bank about 
four million five hundred thousand dollars; and that 



the Silver era. 413 

the failure of the institution was caused by his use of 
its moneys for his private purposes, without the 
knowledge of the directors. These private purposes 
were nearly all large enterprises, designed to enrich 
the state, furnish employment to labor, or beautify 
the city, but they failed to yield a prompt return, and 
carried him down to bankruptcy, though they re- 
mained important and beneficent public improve- 
ments. 

As Mr. Ralston had been the financial Caesar of 
San Francisco, his death was followed by bitter indig- 
nation anions his friends against those who had 
attacked him, and his assailants were now accused of 
having driven him to suicide by their vile sland 
The "Bulletin" and "Call" undertook to justify them- 
selves and were in the awkward position of making 
war on a popular favorite just after his death ; and w 
at the disadvantage of being unable to prove facts, of 
which, as it afterwards appeared, they had confi- 
dential and trustworthy information. A great public 
meeting was held to vindicate the memory of Ralston, 
and brilliant orators paid eloquent tributes to his 
genius and generosity. Thomas Fitch, one of the 
speakers of the occasion, said: 

Eulogy! AYhat part of human speech can fitly eulogize the 
man we have lost. AVhat brush of artist or pen of drain 
can depict the benefactions of his generous life and the brav< 
of his heroic death? His deeds speak for him in tones that 
sound like the blare of trumpets; his monuments rise from 
every rood of ground in your city; his eulogy is written in ten 
thousand hearts; commerce commemorates his deeds with her 



414 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

whitening- sails and her laden wharves; philanthropy chimes 
the bells of all public charities in attestation of his liberality; 
patriotism sings pseans for him who, in the hour of the nation's 
struggle, sent the ringing gold of mercy to chime with the flash- 
ing steel of valor. Unnumbered deeds of private generosity 
attest his secret charities. Sorrow has found solace in his 
deeds. Despair has been lifted into hope by his bounty. 
There are charities whose heaven-kissing spires chronicle his 
donations to the cause of religion. Schools claim him as their 
patron. Hospitals own him as their benefactor. Art has found 
in him a supporter. Science has leaned on him while her 
vision swept the infinite. The feet of progress have been san- 
dalled with his silver. He has upheld invention while she 
wrestled with the dead forces of nature. He was the life of all 
enterprise, the vigor of all progress, the epitome and the repre- 
sentative of all that is broadening and expansive and uplifting 
in the life of California. Would you show honor and hospi- 
tality to travelers, renowned in letters, arts or arms? Ealston 
was the princely host. Did you wish to forward a public or a 
private charity? Ralston headed the subscription list. Would 
you develop a new industry to enlarge the resources of the city, 
start a new manufacture, add wealth to the state, and furnish 
hundreds of husbands and fathers with contented and well paid 
toil ? You went to Ralston for advice and assistance. He im- 
pressed you with his power; he infused you with his energy; 
he touched you with his princely generosity; he conquered 
you with his magnetism; his vitality was like the flash of 
steel; his enduring energy was like the steady and swift flow 
of a cataract; his beneficence was like the copious and search- 
ing philanthropy of the summer rain. Of all her jmblic pos- 
sessions the commonwealth of California never owned any more 
valuable than this man's life; of all her public disasters she has 
had none greater than his death. 

Sec. 217. Bank Reorganized. Mr. Ralston sup- 
posed that, as the capital of the bank had been lost, 
the institution had reached its end; but he did not 



THE SIL VER ERA. 415 

fully appreciate the situation. Among its directors 
and stockholders were many leading capitalists, includ- 
ing perhaps a dozen millionaires, who were personally 
responsible for their share of the debts, from which 
they could not escape if it went into bankruptcy; be- 
sides in that event its large assets would be greatly 
reduced by expensive litigation, and the surplus would 
be tied up in the courts for years. The desire to main- 
tain the bank as a protection to the business of the 
city, and a belief that its good will was valuable, and 
that no other bank in the city would accommodate 
them and many friends among the merchants so well, 
contributed to induce them to form a syndicate, which 
opened the bank five weeks after it closed, supplied by 
assessment the lost capital, provided for paying all its 
debts with no abatement of interest, and restored it 
to its former credit and favor. Such a re-establish- 
ment of a bank that was undoubtedly bankrupt for a 
laro-e sum is said to be without its like elsewhere. 

Sec. 218. Virginia Fire. The destruction of Vir- 
ginia City by fire was felt very keenly in San Fran- 
cisco, where much of the burned property was owned, 
where the money to rebuild had to be raised, and where 
one result was an immense and immediate decline in 
the prices of stocks. The aggregate depreciation v. 
835,000,000. This disaster, with its direct loss of 
$5,000,000, coming within six weeks after the failure 
of the great bank, gave a rude shock to many fur- 
tunes; but backed by the bonanza which within the 
year paid nearly $11,000,000 in dividends, the city 



416 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

soon showed no signs of its trials, and its business 
went on as steadily as though it had never been dis- 
turbed. 

Sec. 219. Lick's Trustees Changed. Mr. Lick had 
selected as his trustees to administer his benevolent 
gifts seven of the richest and most respectable citizens 
of San Francisco; and in his deed, made when he was 
feeble and expecting the approach of death within a 
few months, or perhaps even weeks, he had given them 
absolute control. He soon gained in strength, and 
though not able to walk about much, his mind was 
active, and he undertook to give directions to the 
trustees, sending for them frequently when they were 
enofao:ed in other business, and issuing instructions to 
them without inquiring about their views. This 
method of procedure did not suit them. They had 
assumed a large responsibility without compensa- 
tion, and now looked with apprehension to being 
placed in an awkward position before the public, 
w r hether they yielded or not. While such thoughts 
were under consideration among them, Mr. Lick took 
offense at something said by Mr. Selby, one of the 
number, and requested him to resign. He expressed 
his willingness, but the others objected on the ground 
that they had accepted partly because Mr. Selby was 
to be with them, and they prevailed upon him to 
withdraw his consent. The result was the institu- 
tion of a suit in which, without opposition from them, 
judgment was rendered removing the first board of 
trustees, and appointing a new set, including his son, 



THE SILVER ERA. 417 

John H. Lick, who was thus made a participant in 
the trust. James Lick executed a new deed to the 
new set of trustees, giving one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars to his son, in addition to the pitiful three 
thousand dollars before, and making reductions in the 
amounts for art purposes. 

Sec. 220. 1876. San Francisco enjoyed more 
than her usual amount of prosperity through 187G. 
The rains of the winter were abundant, the crops good, 
and towards the close of the year grain commanded 
high prices on account of the expectation of a great 
war in eastern Europe. The Southern Pacific company 
built several hundred miles of road, completed the 
connection with the net work centering at Los An- 
geles, and ran out into the Colorado desert; thus giv- 
ing facilities and inducements for the settlement of a 
large region of new country, bringing the city into 
more intimate association with the southern part of 
the state, and making it certain that no railroad 
should cross the continent on a southern route in 
American territory without finding a terminal con- 
nection with San Francisco ready for immediate 
use. This was a check upon the supposed inten- 
tion, attributed probably without good cause to 
leading men in the Texas and Pacific Railroad, pi 
using their influence in trying to build up a rival 
to San Francisco on the southern coast. The mining 
production, as well as the agricultural yield was unu- 
sually large. The dividends paid in the metropolis 
in the course of the year were §39,000,000, including 

27 



418 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

$24,000,000 from mines. The mining stock market 
was considered dull, but the sales in one board 
amounted to $226,000,000. Numerous new buildings 
were erected; and among these were Baldwin's build- 
ing, comprising a hotel and theater, a large and splen- 
did structure. 

Sec. 221. Lick's Death, James Lick appointed a 
third set of trustees, and soon afterwards died; leav- 
ing a benefaction that promises to be among the 
greatest on record for the advancement of knowledge 
and the alleviation of poverty. A native of Penn- 
sylvania, bred with scanty education to the trade of 
cabinet-maker, he emigrated when a young man to 
South America, where he had in 1847 accumulated 
thirty thousand dollars. Coming with that sum to 
San Francisco, he invested it in town lots, paying 
three hundred dollars for the land occupied by the 
Lick House, now worth three quarters of a million. 
He was industrious, sharp-witted, simple in his tastes, 
stingy, and almost miserly in his mode of life, though 
capable of much liberality for certain purposes that 
suited his fancy. The value of his property rapidly 
increased, and he was soon reckoned one of the rich- 
est men of the Californian metropolis. His profits 
came almost exclusively from the increase in the value 
of land. He never speculated in anything else. It 
had long been his intention to leave the bulk of his 
estate for the benefit of the people of his favorite 
city. For their sake he refused to give to his rela- 
tives, drove hard bargains with his servants and 



THE SIL VER ERA . 410 

neighbors, stinted himself, and lived in a hovel not 
worth two hundred dollars. When, by the defeat of 
the adverse claims to the site of the Lick House, he 
acquired a clear title there, he, with the help of an 
able architect adopted an original and highly meri- 
torious plan for a hotel, designed to accommodate 
wealthy families in permanent boarding as well as 
travelers. 

Sec. 222. Centennial Celebration. The centennial 
anniversary of the declaration of national indepen- 
dence occurred on Tuesday, and was celebrated with 
festivities that be^an on Mondav morning and ended 
on Wednesday evening. The people of San Francisco 
believed that the fourth of July, 1876, should be ob- 
served with great rejoicing. In the hundred years of 
existence, the nation had grown beyond all previous 
example or even conception. It had increased its area 
and population more than ten fold, and its wealth a 
hundred fold. Its people had been happier than those 
of any other country. It had been the leader of the 
world in general education and social and political lib- 
erty. It had exerted a mighty influence in diffusing 
higher ideas of the capacity of the multitude for ex- 
ercising rights never before conferred on them in 
Europe. It had done much to aid men to believe in 
themselves. It had made wonderful contributions to 
progress by inventions that gave greater control over 
the forces of nature. It planted the highest civiliza- 
tion securely over half a continent. Even in its weak- 
ness and mistakes it became the teacher of other 



420 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

nations. It had done enough to furnish material for 
one of the most attractive and impressive divisions of 
universal history. 

While the whole people had so much reason for cele- 
brating the centennial anniversary, San Francisco had 
additional motives, on account of the local circumstances 
of the city, which for nearly three quarters of a cen- 
tury had remained stationary, insignificant and un- 
known under Spanish dominion and then imme- 
diately after its transfer to the United States started 
upwards w T ith a speed that soon led to a high place 
in the metropolitan list. The citizens who had shared 
the excitements and had been enriched by the profits 
of San Francisco's growth could sincerely celebrate 
the hundredth birthday of the nation. 

A large committee of citizens, under the presidency 
of General James Coey, had made arrangements for a 
demonstration worthy of the occasion and of the city ; 
and all classes of her inhabitants showed their desire 
to do their part. Across the main streets, especially 
Kearny and Montgomery, were stretched banners 
with patriotic inscriptions, and ropes upon which were 
strung the stars and stripes; and the houses generally 
were not only decorated, but were almost hidden by 
the flags. Kearny street at Sutter was spanned by a 
large arch, built by French residents in commemora- 
tion of the participation of France in the establish- 
ment of the government of the United States. 

On Saturday, the solemnities commenced with pa- 
triotic sermons in the synagogues ; and the Protestant 



THE SIL VER ERA. 421 

clergymen followed in the same strain the next day. 
On Monday forenoon there was a sham battle by the 
federal troops, and a review by Governor Irwin of the 
second brigade of the national guard of California, 
under command of Brigadier General McComb, at 
the Presidio; in the afternoon there was firing at a 
target-boat in the bay by several war-ships and forts, 
and a regatta of the master mariners' association, with 
forty-three boats; and in the evening a torch-light 
procession. 

Tuesday was ushered in with salutes from heavy 
guns, and with national airs chimed by the bells of 
St. Patrick's church. Mass and Te Deum in special 
honor of the day were celebrated in all the Catholic 
churches. A procession in which ten thousand men 
took part, marched under direction of the Hon. D. A. 
Macdonald, grand marshal, through the principal 
streets to the Mechanic's Pavilion, where an oration 
was delivered by the Rev. H. Stebbins, and a poem 
by J. F. Bowman. In the evening many houses 
were illuminated, and there was a large masquerade 
ball; and on Wednesday there was a regatta on the 
bay under the management of the San Francisco 
yacht club, twenty-nine boats participating. 

The centennial anniversary of the consecration of 
the mission of San Francisco was celebrated on the 
eighth of October, by a large procession, and oration 
by Archbishop A.leraany, John W. Dwindle, and M. 
G. Vallejo. 

Sec. 223. 1877. A great depression of business, 



422 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

resulting from a severe drought, and a fear that the 
rich deposit of ore in the Consolidated Virginia and 
California mines would soon be exhausted, the organ- 
ization of the workingmen's political party, the com- 
mencement and rapid prosecution of the work in 
widening Dupont street from Market to Bush, the 
opening of the Hall of Records in the new City Hall, 
and the construction of a large part of the main build- 
ing; the adoption of a new line of water-front by the 
harbor commissioners, the completion and occupation 
of the building of the San Francisco stock and ex- 
change board on Pine street, the failure of Duncan's 
savings bank, and the discovery of the great frauds 
committed by its manager, were among the most 
notable events of 1877c 

Sec. 224. Hard Times. The scantiness of the 
rainfall of 1876-77, the amount being less than ten 
inches at San Francisco, and less than that of any 
other season within a quarter of a century, caused a 
general failure of the grain crop, a large mortality in 
the herds of cattle, and a serious decline in the yield 
of the placer mines. The direct pecuniary loss to the 
state by the drought was estimated at twenty million 
dollars. The southern part of the state was especially 
depressed, notwithstanding the completion of the rail- 
road connection between San Francisco and Los An- 
geles in September, 1876, and the extension of the 
road to the Colorado river in the April following. 
Business generally, and especially land speculation, 
had reached a highly inflated condition on the south- 



THE S1L VER ERA. 423 

evn coast in 1874, and four years elapsed before the 
debtors generally could get out of their embarrass- 
ments. The failure of the Texas and Pacific railroad 
company to do any work west of the Pocky mountains, 
its confession of inability to cross the continent with- 
out further aid from congress, and the refusal of that 
body to guarantee the payment of interest as solicited, 
were felt as disasters at San Diego. In 187G the 
number of pleasure seekers in California from the 
eastern states was reduced by the rush to see the 
centennial fair at Philadelphia, and it was still more 
unfavorably affected the next year by the report that 
a great drought had for the season diminished the at- 
tractions and prosperity of our state. At the same 
time, there was a decline of confidence in the bonanza 
mines. The Consolidated Virginia, in January, sus- 
pended its monthly dividend of a million dollars, which 
it had been paying for nearly two years. The market 
value of the mine, calculated from the number of 
shares and the price at which they sold in the stock 
boards early in January, 1875, was$80, 000, 000; that was 
at the climax of the excitement, when the credulous 
public were assured by men represented to be compe- 
tent mining engineers that the mine had ore enough 
in sight to yield §700,000,000; while a prominent 
government official thought he would be entirely S; 
in fixing the sum at $150,000,000 as the lowest possi- 
ble figure. If this estimate had been correct, the 
price of §80,000,000 would not have been too high, 
for two thirds of the yield was profit, and the limits 



424 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of the ore body had not been found, and since that 
time it has been traced two hundred feet deeper. Nev- 
ertheless the opinion spread that the lowest of these 
figures was far too high, and so the prices continued 
to fall, till at the close of 1877 the mine represented 
a market value of about $10,000,000. The California 
mine declined at the same ratio; and as these were the 
two great dividend-paying mines, the stock market, 
which had played a large part in the business of Cal- 
ifornia, and especially of San Francisco, was greatly 
depressed. It had been estimated that at the begin- 
ning of 1875 there were one hundred millionaires in 
California, many of them worth more than $5,000,000 
each, but in 1877 half of the number ceased to be 
millionaires, in the common estimation, and a score or 
more of them were reduced to bankruptcy or its verge, 
while among the laboring classes times were harder 
than ever before. Within three years there had been 
a shrinkage of $140,000,000 in the market value 
of the two leading mines, nearly all of whose shares 
were owned in San Francisco, or $1,000 on an average 
for every white adult in the city ; and though a large 
majority had never owned any of these shares, all were 
affected indirectly, if not directly, by the decline. 

Sec. 225. Workinqmen. Such was the condition 
of affairs when the railroad riots began on the Atlantic 
slope in July. They met a prompt response in San 
Francisco. The hostility among the white laborers, 
who believed that, if it were not for the Mongolian com- 
petition, they could generally get employment at bet- 



THE SILVER ERA. 425 

ter wages, broke out in a riot on the twenty-third of 
July, when one Chinese laundry was burned, and 
several were sacked. The police with difficulty dis- 
persed the mob, but the rioters were defiant, and 
threatened to drive out the Asiatics with fire and 
pistol at no distant day. As among the twenty-seven 
thousand houses more than four fifths were wooden, 
and three hundred Chinese laundries were scattered 
through all the wards, this threat caused much uneasi- 
ness. If an anti- Chinese mob should get control for 
a few hours, the destruction of San Francisco might 
be the result. To counteract this danger, a committee 
of safety, organized under the presidency of W. T. 
Coleman, who had been president of the vigilance com- 
mittee of 1856, with six thousand members, prevented 
the enemies of the Chinese from resorting to force. 
Then the workingmen's political party arose, adopted 
the motto " The Chinese must go," held public meet- 
ings nearly every Sunday, and applauded speakers 
who clamored for hemp to be used in hanging monop- 
olists; who exhibited pieces of rope as part of their 
platform; who declared that the Mongolians must be 
driven out, even if all the manufacturing industry of 
the city should cease; who talked of the burning of 
Moscow as a lesson for the oppressors of white labor; 
and who advised their followers to arm themselves and 
organize in military companies for the purpose of re- 
sisting the police and state and federal troops. 

This party suddenly rose to formidable proportions. 
It promised to protect the rights of laboring men, and 



426 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

denounced the democratic and republican parties as 
corrupt, and accomplices of the monopolists in oppress- 
ing the poor. Dennis Kearney, the leader of the new 
organization, became an effective popular orator, draw- 
ing large crowds of hearers, and commanding loud 
bursts of applause when he spoke; but his success was 
evidently due mainly to the high passions of his hear- 
ers, and his understanding of them, and not to superior 
judgment, learning, or rhetorical skill. His influence, 
however, was sufficient to attract the support of a 
majority of the voters in the city; and to cause much 
uneasiness among rich men and the leaders of the old 
parties. 

Sec. 226. 1878. The year 1878, which has not 
reached its end when this paragraph is written, has 
so far been prosperous. The rainfall was abundant, 
the grain-crops large; and though the Consolidated 
Virginia and California mines reduced their monthly 
dividends from $1,000,000 to $500,000 each, and 
then suspended them, still hopes were entertained 
that they would soon resume, and also that equally 
large dividends would at no distant time be obtained 
from the Sierra Nevada, and Union Consolidated 
mines, in which a body of very rich ore was found. 
In this year six men classed among the millionaires 
residing in San Francisco or its suburbs, died. Mark 
Hopkins, one of the directors of the Central Pacific 
railroad company, left an estate of $10,000,000; 
Michael Reese about $8,000,000; W. S. O'Brien, 
$6,000,000; and Isaac Friedlander (who had been 



THE SIL VER ERA. 407 

greatly embarrassed by the drought of 1877), §400,000. 
The value of the estates of D. D. Colton and Wm. Watt 
has not been published. All these men were poor 
when they arrived in California; all were men of rare 
business capacity and industry, save O'Brien, and he 
was a general favorite among his acquaintance; all 
had the reputation of keeping their contracts; and all 
were public spirited save Reese, though he was liberal 
enough to purchase Francis Lieber's library at a cost 
of §3,000 for the State University. The loss of so 
many millionaires by a city of three hundred thousand 
inhabitants, within a year, is an evidence that the 
claim of exceptional abundance of that class of popu- 
lation has much foundation. 

Sec. 227. Eighteen Years. The distinguishing 
feature of The Silver Era, the period from the begin- 
ning of 1861 till the p resent time, has been the in- 
fluence of the mines of Nevada, which, by their divi- 
dends and the selling of their shares in the stock 
boards, have done much to enrich San "Francisco, and 
give character to her business. No other product of 
her tributary area is equal in value, or belongs to her 
so much as the silver. The wheat, gold, wool, wine 
and fruit must yield precedence to the metal of the 
Comstock. By the boldness with which she invested 
her capital, and her power in attracting those who 
had made fortunes elsewhere without her help, she 
became the owner of nearly everything worth owning 
in the silver mines, which were then worked mainly 
for her benefit. Three great "pay chutes," as they 



428 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

are styled by the miners, each containing several 
large and distinct but related masses of rich ore, were 
found and worked out with an energy, skill and ex- 
cellence of mechanical appliances, to which the great 
mining industry of Potosi, Cerro Pasco, Guanajuato 
and Zacatecas had made no approach. The first of 
these pay chutes to be exhausted so far, commencing 
at the surface in the Gould and Curry mine, and run- 
ning downwards and southwards, through the Savage 
and Hale and Norcross, yielded $40,000,000 gross 
before 1869. The second in the order of date of ex- 
haustion, beginning at the surface in what is now the 
Consolidated Imperial, and running southwards and 
downwards through the Yellow Jacket, Kentuck, 
Crown Point and Belcher, yielded $90,000,000 before 
1874. The third and greatest pay chute so far 
worked made its appearance in the Ophir at the 
surface, and after having been lost for more than ten 
years was again struck three hundred yards distant 
in the Consolidated Virginia, and has yielded $110,- 
000,000. The bottom of the ore body in this pay 
chute has not been reached, and the miners are search- 
ing for new ore bodies in each of the others. In the 
summer of 1878 a body of rich ore was found in the 
Sierra Nevada, and is supposed to be the beginning 
of a new bonanza, and of a still larger production of 
bullion. The average annual yield of the silver 
mines for the five years preceding July, 1878, was 
$35,000,000; the dividends more than half as much, 
the assessments half as much as the dividends, the 



THE SILVER ERA. 429 

average daily fluctuations several millions, and the 
average annual sales in the mining stock boards, 
§200,000,000. Most of the San Franciscans are in- 
tensely interested in the rise and fall of the silver 
stocks, while relatively few read the market reports 
of the sales of wheat. 

The speculation in mining shares became the most 
prominent business in San Francisco, and as a field 
for the investment of money had more frequent and 
greater fluctuations than those of any other stock 
market, making and marring many fortunes in a day. 
The excitement is more attractive than that of the 
gambling table, because it is accompanied by the pro- 
duction of immense quantities of bullion, and there 
are times when the opening of new ore bodies add to 
the national wealth, and enable buver and seller alike 
to make good profits on their transactions. 

The district south of the line of Bush street gained 
fifteen or twenty fold; Kearny and Market streets 
rose from relative insignificance to leading positions 
in retail business; and California near Montgomery 
became the chief center of the money market. The 
construction of eight street railroads gave cheap and 
speedy access to the suburbs, and added five perhaps 
ten times as much as their cost to the value of the 
land in the city, giving to extensive districts, previ- 
ously suburban, an urban character. The concentra- 
tion of street railroad terminations at the end of 
Market street, the slips there enabling ferry-boats to 
make quick landings, the half-hourly trips across the 



430 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

bay, the redaction of the single fares to fifteen cents, 
the sale of commutation tickets, and the construc- 
tion of the wharf, the steam railroads, the street rail- 
roads, and the artificial harbor at Oakland, contributed 
to raise that town to a city of forty thousand inhabit- 
ants, in very intimate suburban relations with the 
metropolis. 

The population of the state had increased to 850,000 
in 1878, and the annual gain since 1860 was not less 
than ten per cent., or more than three times as much 
as the average gain in the United States. After a 
large part of the damage done by refusing to sell the 
federal land in the mineral regions had become irrep- 
arable, the policy was modified, without, however, 
enabling settlers to acquire titles under the same lib- 
eral conditions as in the agricultural districts. As the 
gold yield declined, many of the miners became farm- 
ers, and others discouraged by the high expense of 
transporting their grain and fruit to market, moved 
from the Sierra Nevada to the valleys and coast mount- 
ains. The counties near San Francisco and those on 
the southern coast, attracted most of the new settlers. 
California ceased to be mainly a money-making resort, 
and became a health and pleasure resort. As the 
"Westminister Review" said, after having been the 
treasury, she became the garden of the world. The 
enterprise of her inhabitants, the activity of her busi- 
ness, the fertility of her soil, and the genial warmth 
of her climate, enabled her to make her valleys bloom 
suddenly with most beautiful and luxuriant perennial 



THE SILVER ERA. 431 

verdure. Her markets had the most abundant and 
varied supply of home-grown fruit to be found any- 
where. The resources of the state were carefully 
studied; the geology, botany, zoology, meteorology and 
scenery, were diligently compared with those of other 
countries, explained in comprehensive books, and made 
the subject of frequent comment in the public journals. 
The construction of two thousand miles of railroad 
within her borders, the completion of the iron track 
across the continent, the establishment of lines of 
steamers to China and Australia, contributed vastly 
to her trade, prosperity and population. 



432 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



CHAPTER VII. 

GENERALITIES. 

Section 228. Natural Site. The site of San Fran- 
cisco has been changed wonderfully within thirty years. 
In 1846 the only place apparently suitable for town 
purposes was an area of perhaps forty acres surrounding 
Portsmouth square. Elsewhere no considerable expanse 
of land level or nearly level was to be found without 
going to the presidio in one direction, or the Mission in 
the other. Hill and ravine, chaparral and sand, high 
rocky bluff, mud flat and swamp, covered thousands of 
acres now densely populated, and seeming by their flat 
or gently sloping surface to have been admirably fitted 
by nature to be the heart of a great city. But the hand 
of art is hidden in this vast plain. Eastward from the 
line of First street, between Folsom and Broadway, are 
three hundred and twenty acres now covered by houses 
occupied for purposes of commerce and manufactures, 
but in 1848 occupied by the anchorage of Yerba Buena 
cove. North of Broadway, including North Beach, 
there are forty acres, and south of Folsom street, includ- 
ing part of Mission cove, there are one hundred and 
fifty acres of ground made in the bay. A swamp head- 
ing near the corner of Mission and Seventh streets ran 
for a mile eastward to the bay, with an average width 
of three hundred yards, and a parallel marsh, not so 
wide, had its head near the crossing of Mission and 
Eighth streets. These were called swamps; but they 



GENERALITIES. 433 

seem to have been for part of their area at least, subter- 
ranean lakes, from forty to eighty feet deep, covered by 
a crust of peat eight or ten feet thick. These marshes, 
with another along the border of Mission creek, had an 
area of three hundred acres and are now filled in. 
About eight hundred acres that were swamp and bay in 
18G8 are now solid land, and are occupied for business 
purposes. 

The peat in the marshes that had their heads near the 
site of the new city hall was strong enough to sustain a 
small house or a loaded wagon, though a man, by swing- 
ing himself from side to side, or by jumping upon it, 
could give it a perceptible shiver. There were weak 
places in it, however, and a cow which in searching for 
sweet pasture undertook to jump from one hard spot to 
what appeared to be another, made a mistake, for it gave 
way under her, and a gentleman hunting near by was 
surprised to see her go down, and still more to observe 
that she did not come up again. A puddle of muddy 
water was all that remained to indicate her burial place. 
After that the hunter did not jump about in the swamp 
so boldly as before. Many ludicrous scenes occurred in 
filling up the swamps. When streets were first made 
the weight of the sand pressed the peat down, so that 
the water stood where the surface was dry before. Some- 
times the sand broke through, carrying down the peat 
under it, leaving nothing but water or thin mud near 
the surface. More than once a contractor bad put on 
enough- sand to raise the street to the official grade, and 
gave notice to the city engineer to inspect the work, but 

28 



434 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

in the lapse of a day between the notice and inspection, 
the sand had sunk down six or eight feet; and, when at 
last a permanent bottom had been reached, the heavy 
sand had crowded under the light peat at the sides of 
the street and lifted it up eight or ten feet above its 
original level, in muddy ridges full of hideous cracks. 
Not only was the peat crowded up by the sand in this 
way, but it was also pushed sidewise, so that houses and 
fences built upon it were carried away from their orig- 
inal position and tilted up at singular angles by the up- 
heaval. 

While San Francisco was unfortunate in having such 
wide areas of marsh and mud flat along her water front, 
she had some compensation in the possession of numer- 
ous and high sand hills. It having become evident that it 
would pay to fill in water lots, even when a man with a 
horse and cart was paid fifteen dollars per day, James 
Cunningham saw that here was the place for a steam 
shovel, or steam paddy, as it was commonly termed. 
This was a scoop which at one move would dig up a 
cubic yard of sand or gravel (equivalent to a ton and a 
half in weight, and nearly twice as much as could be 
hauled by a single horse in a cart), then swing it round 
by a crane over a railway car into which the load was 
discharged. The steam paddy was at work from 1852 
till 1854, and from 1859 till 1873 almost constantly, 
sometimes moving two thousand five hundred tons in a 
day, and for a while two were employed. 

The steam shovel could not work anywhere save in 
sand, but there were five thousand acres of it that 



GENERALITIES. 4*35 

needed leveling, though over a considerable part of this 
area the work could be done more cheaply with horse 
and cart. The steam paddy could not be used with ad- 
vantage unless the sand was to be carried a considerable 
distance. Market street, for half a mile from the water, 
was a wide ridge of sand, part of the way sixty feet 
above the present level, and nothing but the steam paddy 
and railroad could have moved it without ruinous ex- 
pense. 

Sec. 229. Grades. In 1850, under urgent pressure 
from citizens who wanted to build and needed some offi- 
cial guidance for fixing the level of their houses, the city 
council, without ordering any careful study of the city's 
topography or future interests, adopted grades for the 
most busy streets, and under this order, Montgomery, 
from Pine to Pacific; Kearny, from Sutter to Pacific; 
Dupont, from Clay to Broadway; Stockton, from Clay to 
North Beach, and Powell, from Broadway to North 
Beach, were graded at various times from 1850 to 1853. 
Most of these streets, as well as the cross streets from 
Commercial to Broadway inclusive, were planked soon 
after the grading was finished. Oregon fir planks, three 
or four inches thick, furnished a cheap material for a 
smooth and strong road-bed that could be put down 
quickly at little expense, and taken up readily whenever, 
as frequently happened, any digging in the street was 
necessary; and though not permanent, still it could be 
replaced at the end of five years for less than the inter- 
est on the extra cost of any stone pavement. 

If the shore line had remained where it was in 1850, 



43G HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the grade then adopted would have been sufficient; but 
the filling in of Yerba Buena cove, and the pushing of 
the water front from near its natural position between 
Montgomery and Sansome on Clay to a place a thou- 
sand feet farther east, made it necessary, for purposes 
of drainage, to raise the levels of many of the streets 
as first established. In 1853, the city council under- 
took to provide for the future by a comprehensive sys- 
tem, and employed Milo Hoadley and W. P. Hum- 
phreys to prepare a system of grades. The table pre- 
sented by them was adopted by the council on the 
twenty-sixth of August ; and though changed afterwards 
in many minor points, it was well devised, for the 
greater part of the area which it covered, and especially 
in what was then the business part of the city, where 
there was general discontent because the levels were 
raised above the former official grades, in many places 
as much as five feet. This new grade of 1853 imposed 
a heavy expense upon those who had already built of 
brick, and so many citizens were dissatified that another 
board of engineers was organized to revise the table. 
The new board refused to alter "the Hoadley grades," 
as they were called, in those places where they most 
seriously affected the value of buildings. On the hills 
great changes were made by the new board. Hoadley 
had proposed more cutting of rock than the lot-owners 
could afford. He required the removal of one hundred 
and thirty-nine vertical feet at the intersection of Mont- 
gomery and Union streets, and one hundred and thirty- 
three feet at the crossing of Kearny and Greenwich. 



GENERALITIES. 437 

The summit of Telegraph hill, in the middle of the 
block bounded by Filbert, Greenwich, Kearny and Mont- 
gomery streets, would have to be cut down two hundred 
feet to bring it to the level of the surrounding streets. 
The lots there were then worth about ten cents a square 
foot, and the grading, as proposed by Hoadley, would 
cost from three to six dollars per square foot. It was 
his idea that this work would be done in the course of 
years, and that the rock taken from the hill would be in 
demand for filling water lots and for ballast. It was 
then considered especially important to provide ballast, 
for ships came full and went away empty, and the time 
when they would come empty and go away full, as they 
now do, was considered too remote for any business cal- 
culation. The new board of engineers was however 
not entirely adverse to deep cutting, for it required an 
excavation on Sansome street of forty feet at Vallejo, 
one hundred and twenty at Green, thirty-four at Union, 
and fifty-six at Filbert. The grades thus recommended 
were accepted by the council, and have with slight 
changes been adhered to since, though after a lapse of 
more than twenty years Sansome street has not yet been 
cut through the base of Telegraph hill on the modified 
grade. 

Sec. 230. Amount of Grading. No official table 
shows the amount of grading actually done. The depth 
of the cutting was calculated from the center of the 
street crossing, which was in many places on a steep 
hill-side. The council determined the grades of the 
streets, and the lot-owners, for their own convenience, 



438 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

were compelled to put their lots on the same level with 
the street in front of them. About one fourth of the 
area was in streets. We may assume that the present 
level of three thousand acres is on the average nine feet 
above or below the natural surface of the ground, and 
these figures imply the transfer of twenty-one million 
cubic yards from hill to hollow. 

A necessary result of the change of grade after houses 
had been erected, was that they had to be adapted to the 
new level. In some cases, new stories were put under 
or upon old houses, which, though only one or two 
stories high when first built, are three or four stories 
high now. In the business part of the city, a large pro- 
portion of the houses were raised to conform to the 
Hoadley grade, and as many of them were large struct- 
ures of brick, this raising was no small undertaking. 
A machine based on the principle of the hydraulic press, 
for lifting up houses, was invented and used for raising 
about nine hundred brick houses in San Francisco, one 
of them covering an area of one hundred and thirty- 
seven and one half feet square. 

Sec. 231. Sources of Buildings. Common rumor 
tells us of the sources of the money invested in many of 
the prominent buildings of San Francisco. The Crown 
Point and Belcher bonanza furnished Mr. Sharon with 
the means for becoming the owner of the Palace hotel. 
Baldwin's hotel was the result of lucky speculations 
in Ophir and Mexican stock. The Nevada block was 
built with bullion from the Consolidated Virginia. The 
two buildings on the eastern corners of Pine and Mont- 



GENERALITIES. 439 

gomery grew out of the Gould and Curry and Savage 
bonanza. Three brothers, who had worked the Sierra 
Buttesgold quartz mine with success, became proprietors 
of the Cosmopolitan hotel. Hay ward's building at No. 
419 California street, was built with the profits of the 
Hay ward gold quartz mine at Sutter creek. Pierce's 
building at Xo. 317 California street was washed out of 
the blue gravel hydraulic claim at Smartsville. Watts' s 
building on the south-east corner of Clay and Kearny 
was stamped out of the auriferous quartz of the Eureka 
mine at Grass Valley. The large wooden building on 
the north-west corner of Stockton and O'Farrell, was 
built with money saved from the Plato mine, now part of 
the Consolidated Imperial. The foundation for the Occi- 
dental hotel was laid in the first foundry established in 
San Francisco. The Nucleus building, on the east cor- 
ner of Market and Third, was, if not made out of the 
profits of the first steam-shovel, at least built by its im- 
porter, who did a large part of the grading of the city. 
The law firm of Halleck, Peachy k Billings obtained 
much of the money to pay for Montgomery Block out of 
their business as counsel in cases before the United 
States land commission. The rents from a couple of lots 
bought in 1847 by a private soldier in Stevenson's regi- 
ment for about thirty dollars, furnished the means for 
putting up the Russ House. The Lick House was in 
like manner the outgrowth of a small but fortunate in- 
vestment in town lots before the gold discovery. Fried- 
lander erected the building on the north-eastern corner 
of California and Sansome streets, out of the profits of 



440 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

wheat speculation. The Odd Fellows' Hall, on the north- 
west corner of Montgomery and Summer streets was 
built by J. W. Tucker, who had made his money out of 
a fashionable jewelry store, when great profits were 
charged in his business. Bancroft's building owes its 
existence to .a large business in books and stationery. 
The house on the north-east corner of California and 
Leidesdorfif streets was built by the Pacific insurance com- 
pany, which was bankrupted by the Chicago fire in 1871. 
Certain people had so much confidence in Stephen A. 
Wright, who had opened a shop as a banker, that they 
deposited one hundred and fifty thousand dollars with him 
in 1854, and he made a permanent investment for them 
by putting up the brick and granite building on the 
north-west corner of Montgomery and Jackson streets. 
So long as they did not demand their principal, all went 
well, but when the financial panic came in February, 
1855, nothing was left for them — save the privilege of 
looking at the architectural pile which belonged to 
somebody else. The house of the Real Estate Associates, 
at 228 Montgomery, was made out of the profits of buy- 
ing land in large lots, dividing it up into small ones, 
putting houses on them, and selling them at a credit. 
The buildings of the San Francisco Stock Exchange and 
the Pacific Exchange are monuments of the passion of 
San Franciscans for taking the chances in wild specula- 
tion. The houses at 400 and 420 Montgomery street 
were erected by Samuel Brannan in 1853 out of profits 
of real estate investments, and were then considered 
ornaments of the city and signal evidences of confidence 



GENERA L I TIES. 441 

in her future prosperity and importance. W. T. Sher- 
man brought the capital from St. Louis to build the 
house on the north-east corner of Montgomery and Jack- 
son for the bank of Lucas, Turner & Co.. of which he 
was the manager. The Mercantile Library building 
was paid for by a grand lottery, authorized by statute 
in violation of the constitution, but no worse in prin- 
ciple, though larger in scale, than the raffles frequently 
held at church fairs. The Central Pacific railroad com- 
pany built the house on the north corner of Fourth and 
Townsend streets ; and four of the residence palaces on 
California street, not fir from Mason, were built by di- 
rectors of the same company, in which three of them 
accumulated nearly all their wealth. On Taylor street, 
between Washington and Clay are a couple of magnifi- 
cent dwellings built out of profits on money managed 
with capacity. The buildings erected by associated cap- 
ital, such as those of banking and charitable institutions 
are numerous. 

Sec. 232. The Press. After the return of its editor 
from the mines, whither they went in the first excite- 
ment, the " Oalifornian " resumed publication on the fif- 
teenth of August, 1848, and having been consolidated 
with the k ' Star," appeared on the eighteenth of Novem- 
ber as the "Star and Californian." On the fourth of 
January, 1849, it changed its name to the '" Alta I Jali- 
fomia." It was published as a weekly till December 10, 
then appeared three times a week, and on the twenty- 
second of January became a daily, anticipating a rival 
which appeared as a daily on the twenty- third. In 



442 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

1851 the "Herald," and in 1854 the "Chronicle," took 
considerable shares of business from the "Alta," but 
both lost much of their favor with the public in May, 
1856, because they did not sustain the movement for a 
vigilance committee, and both of them died in conse- 
quence of the losses then sustained, while the " Alta," 
by advocating the popular side, became very profitable. 
The "Bulletin" began on the eighth of October, 1855, 
speedily gained a large circulation, and has enjoyed a 
steady prosperity ever since. The "Morning Call" 
was founded on the first of December, 1856, as the 
first permanent cheap daily journal. The present 
" Chronicle," not related in any manner to the old " Chron- 
icle" which died in 1858, appeared as an advertising 
sheet for the theaters in 1865, and having been success- 
ful for three years was developed into a general news- 
paper. The "Examiner" dates from 1862, and the 
"Evening Post" from 1871. These are the daily 
English journals devoted to general news that have sur- 
vived ; and there are besides more than a score of others, 
weekly, or devoted to special branches of business, or 
foreign — German, French, Italian, Scandinavian, Span- 
ish, Chinese; and not less than two hundred have started 
and expired. In ability, learning, careful editing, and 
enterprise in collecting news, the San Francisco press 
compares not unfavorably with that of other American 
cities. 

Sec. 233. Amusements. San Francisco has devoted 
a considerable share of her attention to the pursuit of 
pleasure. The greater part of the territory of which 



GENERALITIES. \\?> 

she is the metropolis is poor in resources for enjoyment. 
Large areas in Nevada, Arizona, Southern California, 

Oregon and Idaho are occupied by deserts; western Ore- 
gon and Washington are enveloped for much of the year 
in rain or mist; the mining counties of California are 
declining as their placers are exhausted ; the Sacramento 
and San Joaquin valleys suffer with intense heat in the 
summer, and have not been satisfactorily protected 
against ilood and drought. Partly for these reasons, 
most of the luxury of the slope has collected in and 
about San Francisco. The people from the wide region 
between the British and Mexican lines west of the 
Rocky mountains have come hither for twenty years to 
seek compensation for the toils and privations of frontier 
life, and have contributed much to refine and enrich the 
city. From early times the theaters have been large, 
good, and relatively numerous. Celebrated actors and 
singers came half around the world to share the golden 
harvest of California. The chill temperature of the 
evenings throughout the year stimulated dancing, which 
is more common in San Francisco than in any other 
city. The German, French, and Italian population each 
contributed features of its own to the general character. 
Concerts, masquerades, picnics, processions, and excur- 
sions were frequent. 

For three years after the gold discovery, the people 
had few opportunities to make pleasure excursions to the 
country; and those who wanted to enjoy the open air 
away from the throng of business usually contented 
themselves by walking to the tops of Russian or Tele- 



444 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

graph Hill, which latter was visited bj thousands, who 
sat on its sides for hours every pleasant Sunday and 
looked down over the busy bay. Russ garden, on the 
south corner of Sixth and Harrison streets, was opened 
as a popular resort in 1853, and was liberally patron- 
ized, especially on Sunday, until 1860, when the Mar- 
ket street railroad gave facilities to reach the " Willows," 
a public garden between Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Va- 
lencia and Mission streets. The surface of the ground 
was then about twenty feet below its present level, and 
the name was derived from the trees, which gave an 
abundance of shade. A year later Hayes park, which 
had a large pavilion on Laguna, near Hayes street, be- 
came a favorite place for picnics and Sunday gatherings; 
and in 1866 it was superseded by Woodward's garden, 
which has since maintained its place in popular favor. 

The large population of the city supplied a liberal 
patronage to excursions. Picnic parties went in great 
numbers to the various grounds at Belmont, Oakland, 
Alameda, Saucelito, San Rafael and Berkeley, when 
they were successively made accessible conveniently by 
improved steam communication. The street railroads of 
San Francisco and Oakland, the ferry boats crossing the 
bay in various directions, the roads to the cemeteries, the 
park, the beach, the Mission peaks, and Mount San 
Bruno offer so many facilities for getting out into the 
country, that though three times as many go into the 
country on Sunda}^ as went fifteen years ago, yet the 
throng is not anywhere now so great. 

Sec. 234. Churches. No house of worship had been 



GENERALITIES. 445 

maintained at Yerba Buena under the Mexican domin- 
ion, and soon after the American flag was hoisted Pruden- 
cio Santillan, Mexican Catholic priest at the Mission, left 
the place, which had had no regular religious services for 
several years, though occasionally a priest would come 
from San Jose. The Mormons who arrived in the 
"Brooklyn'' met for worship every Sunday in some pri- 
vate house, the congregation being called together by a 
hand bell, which, though not very large, when rung on 
Portsmouth square could be heard by all the residents 
of the village. Elder Samuel Brannan usually con- 
ducted the services. Protestant worship was held oc- 
casionally by different clergymen from April, 1847, till 
November 1, 1849, when the first Protestant church was 
opened by the Congregationalists, with the Rev. T. D. 
Hunt as their pastor. In the course of the next year, 
Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist churches were or- 
ganized on permanent bases. J. S. Alemany was conse- 
crated Catholic bishop of California at Rome in 1850, 
and TT. I. Kip. of the Episcopal church, missionary 
bishop of California at Xew York three years later, and 
both have continued to labor in the same field ever since, 
the former having been promoted to the rank of arch- 
bishop. San Francisco abounds with churches, with at 
least one for nearly every phase of Christian faith, be- 
sides Jewish synagogues and Boodhist joss-houses. The 
cosmopolitan character of the population has a liberaliz- 
ing tendency, and California will never be noted for 
high regard of sectarian lines, or strict observance of 
ceremonial or disciplinary rules. The church property 



446 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

is valuable, some of the buildings are large and costly, 
and there is no lack of pulpit eloquence or of sincere 
devotion. 

Sec. 235. Charities. Charitable associations are 
numerous in San Francisco, and large sums are con- 
tributed every year to alleviate poverty and suffering. 
The secret associations which undertake to aid members 
in sickness, and their widows and orphans, have proba- 
bly 20,000 members. There are two dozen benevolent 
societies organized on the basis of nationality, and as 
many more on the basis of creed or church associations. 
The expenditure of the Catholic churches of San Fran- 
cisco in 1877 for charity was $42,000, and that of other 
churches not less. The total annual expenditure of the 
city and its citizens for charitable purposes is not less 
than $1,000,000, and probably considerably more. No 
city has contributed so much relatively to be spent at a 
distance. No great disaster can befall any European or 
American state largely represented by its native resid- 
ents in California without an expression of sympathy 
from San Francisco. Liberal subscriptions have been 
given to British, French, German, Italian, Hungarian, 
Swedish, Swiss, Slavonian, Peruvian, and Mexican char- 
ities ; and the sums collected for the relief of distant suf- 
ering have probably amounted to more than §2,000,000. 
The gifts to the sanitary fund and Christian commission 
in the civil war were $974,000; to the sanitary and 
ransom fund of France in 1870-71, $299,678; to the 
sufferers by the Chicago fire in 1871, $144,761; to the 
German sanitary fund, $138,383; to the yellow fever 



GENERALITIES. 447 

sufferers in 1878, §100,000 ; for the Virginia City fire in 
1875. $60,000; for the Kansas grasshopper scourge in 
1875, $37,000; for the Marysville flood in 1875, §22,- 
000; for the Sacramento flood in 18G2, §20,000, and 
large supplies of clothes and provisions ; for the Sacra- 
mento fire in 1852, §30,000; for the Peruvian earth- 
quake in 1868, §15,500; for the yellow fever in 1853, 
§10,000; and smaller sums for the Italian patriotic 
fund, for destitute immigrants by land in 18l7 and 
1851, and suffering by famine among jews in Morocco 
in 1860; by a Swiss flood in 1868, by a French flood 
in 1867, by a Hungarian flood in 1876, by the Inyo 
earthquake in 1876, and the Washoe Indian war in 1860, 
San Francisco contributed about one half of the sums 
exceeding §60,000, and nearly all of the smaller sums. 

Sec. 236. Home Life. Ever since the gold discovery 
the home life of San Francisco has been different from 
that of any other city. The composite character of its 
population, the long journeys taken by ninety-five out 
of one hundred of its adult inhabitants before they 
could make their homes here, the remarkably specula- 
tive and fluctuating features of its business, and the 
peculiarities of its climate, imply peculiarities of custom. 
The climate has a great effect upon domestic life every- 
where; in San Francisco it is unlike that of any other 
great city. The coolness of the summers demanding ac- 
tive exercise for comfort in July, the warmth of the 
winter, which has neither ice nor snow, the multitude 
of clear days — nearly three hundred in a year — and the 
rarity of rain from April to October inclusive, render 



448 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

the shelter of a house less needful than in other climes, 
and drive people into the open air. Home is less and 
the street more for the San Franciscans than for the 
citizens of New York or Charleston. 

In a temperature always cool, there must be much 
physical activity and intellectual energy; and it is not 
improbable that a peculiar race will grow up near the 
ocean shore on the middle coast of California; a race 
bred to a great extent in the open air, where the 
sunshine is not uncomfortably warm more than a dozen 
days in the year; a race marked by large size, healthy 
bodies, industrious habits, and clear complexion. Cer- 
tainly nature and art never combined elsewhere so many 
circumstances favorable for the physical and mental 
training of children than will at no distant time be found 
in or near San Francisco. Families generally are small ; 
the American women — that is, those born in the United 
States — dislike to have many children, and those who 
have been married fifteen or twenty years have not on 
the average more than two living. Among the women 
of foreign birth, especially those of Irish blood or Jew- 
ish faith, it is common to have six or eight children ; 
but their daughters are not so prolific. 

According to a table prepared by the county clerk, 
22,G36 natives and 25,042 foreign citizens were regis- 
tered as entitled to vote in San Francisco in 1876, the 
natives being forty-seven out of a hundred in the entire 
number. The school census of the same year reported 
15,288 children between {\yq and seventeen years of age 
were the offspring of native parents, while 45,922 were 



GENERALITIES. 449 

born of foreign parents. The children of native parents 
are twenty-four per cent, of all the children, or only one 
third so numerous relatively as those of foreign parents. 

Sec. 237. Hotels. Many circumstances have con- 
tributed to give hotels and boarding houses a prominent 
place in San Francisco life. The large proportion of 
unmarried men, the numerous married women without 
children, the unsettled character of the population in 
early years, the multitude of men engaged in risk}- spec- 
ulations, and the high wages of domestic servants, drove 
people to hotels, boarding-houses and restaurants in 
early times, and stimulated the development of high 
excellence in their management. This excellence is still 
maintained, and many of the influences potent against 
housekeeping twenty years ago still continue nearly as 
powerful as ever. 

The City hotel, a building of adobe a story and a half 
high, on the south-west corner of Clay and Kearny, 
erected in 1847, was the first house of the kind in San 
Francisco. It was superseded in 1849 by the St. Fran- 
cis, a three-story wooden structure, on the south-west 
corner of Clay and Bupont. This was for nearly two 
years the most fashionable hotel, and after it came ;i 
multitude of houses, among which the Oriental, a four- 
story wooden building on the south-west coiner of Bush 
and Battery, in 1851 gained the favor of wealthy fami- 
lies, and managed to maintain it for ten years. The 
Tehama house, a two-story frame on the site of the pres- 
ent bank of California, had the patronage of the ann\ 
officers; and the International, a brick house on the 

20 



450 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

north side of Jackson street, where Montgomery avenue 
now runs, had the favor of travelers. The Rassette 
house, of wood, burned down in 1853, was rebuilt, then 
changed to the Metropolitan hotel, torn down, rebuilt, 
and called the Cosmopolitan, not a hotel now. 

The rapid growth of the city after 1860, in conse- 
quence of the settlement of the land titles south of Cal- 
ifornia street about that time, was accompanied by the 
construction of larger and finer hotels than any before 
seen in California. The Russ, the Lick, the Cosmopol- 
itan, and the Occidental, were finished and opened within 
three years. The Grand was completed in 1869, the 
Palace in 1875, and the Baldwin in 1877. The Palace 
is reputed to be the largest, most costly, and most com- 
modious hotel in the world, and if it does not deserve 
the repute, has at least few equals. Together, the six 
hotels last mentioned can accommodate about four thou- 
sand guests. 

Many of the patrons of these houses are families who 
remain as permanent boarders from year to year. All 
save the Russ are now considered first-class hotels, en- 
titled to rank with the best in New York. These and 
seven second-class hotels had 2614 new guests arriving 
in a week in March, 1875, equivalent to 136,000 in a 
year. The boarding-houses are numerous, and many of 
them large and commodious. 

Sec. 238. Millionaires. San Francisco has prob- 
ably more millionaires in proportion to the number of 
inhabitants than any other city, and at the same time 
has fewer paupers, more land-owners, and more comfort 



GENERA L I TIES. .] r, 1 

in the homes of the multitude. The remarkable accu- 
mulation of wealth in the hands of a few has not impov- 
erished their immediate neighbors. Leland Stanford, 
C. P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, and the late Mark 
Hopkins, were merchants in Sacramento in very mod- 
erate circumstances when congress gave its vast sub- 
sidies to the Central Pacific railroad company, and laid 
the foundations of their fortunes. The late D. D. Col- 
ton, associated with them, began life in California as 
deputy-sheriff of Siskiyou county, then became a lawyer, 
but made much of his wealth by the increase in the 
value of land bought at the sale of the Broderick estate. 
Peter Donahue, owner of the Petaluma Valley railroad 
was an engineer on an ocean steamship, established the 
first foundry of San Francisco, and after the great fires 
of 1850 and 1851 obtained at very low prices large quan- 
tities of old iron that was afterwards sold at a great ad- 
vance. J. C. Flood and the late W. S. O'Brien kept a 
bar until accident led them into the stock market, and in 
less than five years after they sold out their bar they 
were among the richest of men. J. W. Mackey and J. 
(x. Fair, their partners, had been miners. Win. Sharon 
had lived in San Francisco fifteen years before he became 
wealthy, and within a few years after he became agent 
of the Bank of California at Virginia City, he was re- 
ported to be worth $25,000,000. At that time the bank 
loaned large sums on mining stocks, and Ralston, the 
manager, being engaged in stock speculations, wanted an 
acute man at the mines to send him confidential inform- 
ation. Sharon had all the qualities needed for the posi- 



452 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tion, and was lucky in having obtained a local reputation 
for capacity, as well as control of a large capital belong- 
ing to the bank before the opening of the Crown Point 
and Belcher bonanza, of the discovery of which he was 
one of the first to hear and of the progress of which he 
had the earliest information. The finding of a large 
deposit of rich ore makes a demand for money among 
the miners and others acquainted with the facts, and 
when these men solicit loans the capitalist to whom they 
apply is usually made their confidant. 

John P. Jones had been a miner, and was superin- 
tendent of the Crown Point mine when its bonanza was 
discovered. He bought thousands of shares at three 
dollars, and held them till they sold for a hundred times 
as much. By his advice his brother-in-law, Alvinza 
Hay ward, made some millions out of the same stock. 
Hayward had previously become a millionaire out of a 
gold quartz mine at Sutter Creek, where he had strug- 
gled for years in poverty before he succeeded in getting 
at the buried wealth. E. J. Baldwin kept a livery sta- 
ble before he tried speculating in mining stocks, and for 
a long time fortune did not smile on him ; but he was 
lucky enough to get hold of a large number of shares in 
the Ophir and Mexican mines just before the opening of 
the Consolidated Virginia bonanza in 1873, and he 
made millions by selling at the right time. James R. 
Keene, now in New York, sold milk as a boy in Shasta, 
and afterwards had a hard time as a curbstone broker in 
San Francisco for years, but managed to catch the tide 
of fortune at its flood, and is credited with possessing 
half a dozen millions. 



GENERALITIES. 453 

D. 0. Mills, now president of the bank of California, 
is one of the oldest and most prudent bankers in the 
state, and owes eight or ten millions to strict observance 
of sound business rules. John Parrott, American con- 
sul at Mazatlan when gold was discovered at Coloma, is 
one of the few millionaires of California who brought 
much money with him, though he has increased his cap- 
ital probably fifty fold in the meantime. M. S. Latham, 
ex-manager of the London and San Francisco bank, was a 
lawyer, has been collector, governor, and federal sena- 
tor, and is the most scholarly of those who have been 
San Francisco millionaires, for he holds that position no 
longer. Lloyd Tevis, J. B. Haggin, and the late 
Michael Reese have made much of their fortunes out of 
loans. Charles Lux and Henry Miller commenced life 
as butcher-boys, and now have landed estates that 
princes might envy. W. S. Chapman bought large areas 
of the plain in Stanislaus and Merced counties, east of 
the San Joaquin river, from the federal government 
about 18G7, just before the general public discovered that 
that, region was destined to be one of the chief centers 
of agricultural wealth in the state, and much of the 
land then bought with scrip at a cost to him of less than 
a dollar in coin an acre, has since been in demand at 
twenty dollars, and has in the meantime paid a large 
interest for pasturage or tillage. .1. M. Shatter obtained 
large tracts of land as payment for legal services, and 
his ranch at Point Reyes is the finest dairy estate in 
America. John Sullivan was a bricklayer, and was en- 
riched by the rise in city land. The millionaire estates 



454 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

of J. L. Folsom and Thomas 0. Larkin have disap- 
peared. 

The law and custom of California do not favor the 
perpetuation of large estates. There is no law of 
primogeniture or practice of entail, nor is any favor 
shown by public opinion to either. Without them, es- 
pecially in a country where there is so much speculation 
as here, the maintenance of great wealth in any family 
for many generations is not probable, and the people 
accept the situation. Nearly all the rich men are proud 
of the fact that they have made their own fortunes, and 
they are willing that their remote descendants should 
commence life as they did. They do not worry them- 
selves about their inability to transmit their wealth in a 
lump to distant times as the support of a family to wear 
their own names in honor. 

Sec. 239. Extravagance. Of all people, the most 
extravagant are the Californians. They not only spend 
more absolutely because they earn more, but they spend 
more relatively. The great motive of economy, fear of 
the future, is much weaker here than elsewhere. A 
large part of the population are solitary men, who think 
that no matter what pecuniary loss may overtake them, 
they can alw r ays earn a living and soon accumulate a 
little money again. Poverty is not accompanied by the 
same privations or the same social discredit here as in 
older communities. The Californian who has conducted 
himself as a gentleman, knows that many of his old ac- 
quaintances, even if they were not his friends when he 
was prosperous, will give him aid in his need. It is not 



GENERALITIES. 455 

in them to turn their backs; sentiment and custom re- 
quire them to be generous. The frequency of the great 
and sudden changes from poverty to wealth, and from 
wealth to poverty, breeds a feeling of obligation to one 
another. Many unfortunates do not get the benefits of 
this mutual helpfulness, but others do, and it influences 
the general mode of life. 

The high wages, the high rates of interest, the high 
profits of many kinds of business, the great concen- 
tration of wealth, the high average of intelligence and 
the frequency of visits to the great cities on both 
sides of the Atlantic, bred a fondness for luxury, in 
which San Francisco far surpasses any city of equal size 
anywhere. A San Franciscan lady who had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing the private apartments of the Empress 
Eugenie when abandoned by her after the battle of Se- 
dan, said that in convenience and elegance of furniture 
they were inferior to many bedchambers of our city ; 
and yet they were reputed to be more costly than any 
other in Europe. Each class here has better houses, 
better furniture, better tables, better clothes than the 
same class in American cities on the Atlantic slope. It 
also spends more in amusements. This implies the 
prevalence of extravagance, the custom of making sac- 
rifices for appearances, and a notably inferior degree <»i 
economy. Something of this is due to the habits estab- 
lished during the early times when money was more 
abundant among the multitude than now; and some- 
thing also to the prominence of speculation, which stim- 
ulates to immediate enjoyment, with little regard to 



456 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

remote contingencies. San Francisco, while confi- 
dently claiming a great future, is pre-eminently, in its 
spirit, a city of the present. In business, as in pleas- 
ure, prompt returns are demanded. 

The tendency of the business of California toward 
speculation has the effect of stimulating people to im- 
mediate enjoyment. Before the completion of the 
telegraph across the continent, merchandising was full 
of large risks and sudden turns. A few weeks might 
see a change from a scarcity to a glut, or from a glut 
to a scarcity. There was no regularity in prices or 
supplies. After the opening of the Comstock Lode, 
the shares were thrown into the San Francisco mar- 
ket, and by their remarkable fluctuations, became its 
most remarkable feature. The rapid rise in city lots 
and agricultural lands, under the impulse of great ad- 
ditions to the population, added to the fondness for 
bold pecuniary ventures. Never did any country offer 
baits so numerous or so seductive to the gambling ap- 
petite, which is strong in human nature, and usually 
breaks out fiercely wherever it has a chance. 

The spirit of '49 has not died out. Many of those 
who were here in the flush era of the early placer 
mining have not freed themselves from its influence. 
Our local experience has proved that nothing does so 
much to ruin men, generally, as a sudden change to 
high wages. There never was a more extravagant, 
wasteful and dissipated set of men than the old placer 
miners. They who had been sober and industrious, 
and had saved money when they earned sixteen dollars 



GENERALITIES. 457 

a month, before corning to California, became idle and 
drunken, and saved nothing when they earned two 
hundred dollars. They spent as fast as they made 
their money. This was not the universal rule, but the 
custom was more common than elsewh -r \ Poverty 
is the mother of economy. The barren soil of Scot- 
land and New England, and the pitiful little farms of 
France, are the best breeding places for thrift. Wel- 
lington said that a French army could subsist in com- 
fort, and a Spanish army in luxury, witli supplies on 
which an English army would starve. 

The evidences of Californian extravagance are to be 
seen on every side. The dwellings, furniture, tables, 
and dress of the people, indicate very liberal expendi- 
ture. San Francisco has the reputation of buying 
the most costly wines, cigars and silks. A saying, 
not deserving to be dignified as a proverb, declares 
that "New York dresses better than Paris, and San 
Francisco better than New York." The magnificent 
hotels and the palaces of a dozen millionaires are un- 
surpassed, if equaled by anything' short of royalty in 
the luxury of their appointments. There is a large 
demand for the best that can be had. California con- 
sumes twenty thousand dozen of genuine sparkling 
wine annually, and the Atlantic slope, with fifty times 
as many people, does not consume seven times as 
much champagne. California uses sixty pounds of 
sugar to the person in a year, the Atlantic slope 
twenty-five, Great Britain forty, Franco and Holland 
each twenty, and Italy seven. Coffee is sold to the 



458 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

extent of one pound each for the inhabitants in Great 
Britain and Italy, three pounds in France, seven in 
Holland and the Atlantic states, and ten in this state. 
Of tea, the average Californian drinks six pounds in 
a twelvemonth, the other American two; the Briton 
four; the Frenchman and Italian less than a quarter 
of a pound. The figures for the consumption of many- 
other articles of comfort and luxury are incomplete, a 
large proportion of our imports coming through New 
York, and paying duty there, and being forwarded to 
California under circumstances that leave no oppor- 
tunity to ascertain their value or amount. Though we 
consume largely of foreign goods imported at New 
York, with one fiftieth of the population, we pay one 
thirtieth of the customs at San Francisco; and the 
average consumption of foreign -products is at least 
twice as great here as on the Atlantic slope. The 
extravagance is not confined to a few ; it is character- 
istic of the community generally ; and it is worse, rela- 
tively, among the poor than the rich. Many of the 
wealthy families owe their wealth to simplicity of 
life more than to large gains. 

Sec. 240. Social Spirit. As we have little hered- 
itary wealth, and most of our great fortunes have 
been made for their present possessors within a brief 
time, by bold investments or lucky speculations, and 
not by occupations requiring much erudition or re- 
finement, so the millionaires and their families are in 
some cases ignorant of many fashionable usages. 
Nowhere else will such bad manners be found in 



GENERALITIES. 439 

families possessing so much wealth, Pcefinement is 
the growth of time. People bred in poverty are gen- 
erally ignorant of many habits familiar to the rich, 
and when they acquire wealth, the rudeness of their 
early life often sticks to them. Several generations 
of inherited wealth, or at least comfortable ease, arc 
necessary to confer a high social polish on some 
families. This inheritance is lacking among our mill- 
ionaires, as a class, and so far California is at a dis- 
advantage. 

High education is not prized so much here as it is 
in many Eastern cities. In Boston a circle of nabobs 
feels uncomfortable unless it has some literary celeb- 
rities. Fashion demands a few authors at a social 
gathering as a needful spice. The man who can write 
a taking book or magazine article, or deliver a scien- 
tific lecture is regarded as one of the attractions of the 
city, and of any circle which he may favor with his 
presence. High education there is usually the prop- 
erty of those who have good social positions; and it is 
often the means of obtaining a large income. Literary 
and scientific eminence have less pecuniary and social 
value here than in the East. 

Nevertheless, money is less worshipped, and the 
man is more respected for his moral and intellectual 
worth here than anywhere else. The charge against 
California, as compared with the Atlantic states, is a 
repetition of the one made against those status by 
European writers. They complained of the almighty 
dollar; they accused the Americans of being a sordid, 



460 

grovelling, money -getting, grossly material nation, 
but they have become tired of the accusation. They 
see that the Americans are the most extravagant of 
all people, the most remote from miserly feeling. The 
charge of money worship is based on misconceptions. 
The natural wealth of the country, the relative sparse- 
ness of population, the extensive use of machinery, 
the large tide of immigration, the general education 
of the people, and the respectability of labor and busi- 
ness, have given facilities for making fortunes much 
more easily and rapidly than were to be found in the 
old world; and, therefore, there was more inducement 
for men to devote themselves to business. The 
wealthiest people were occupied with money-making 
in occupations which the wealthy people in Europe 
had decided to be discreditable. That was the main 
proof of the pretended sordidness of American society. 
It was no proof; it was not even evidence; it did 
not bear on the main point at issue. The rich Eng- 
lishman assumed that commerce and mechanical trades 
are sordid occupations, and that a country where they 
are held in honor must be sordid. These assumptions 
were narrow prejudices; and wherever they are ac- 
cepted, there intellect and morals are relatively less 
esteemed than where rejected. They are accepted in 
Europe ; they are rejected to a great extent in the 
Atlantic states ; they are rejected to a still greater 
degree in California. European society is divided 
into half a dozen different strata, based mainly on 
occupation; and the members of each strata refuse to 



GENERALITIES. 4G1 

associate with those below them. The position of 
these strata is regulated to a large extent by the esti- 
mate of their general pecuniary conditions. The in- 
dividual counts for little; the class counts for much. 

In Europe, and to a considerable extent in the 
Atlantic states, manual labor excludes a man from 
fashionable society, and he who once supported him- 
self by hard work can never get rid of its stigma in 
the opinion of fashionable people, no matter how 
rich he may become. Wherever such prejudices pre- 
vail, there the man is measured by a false standard. 
They have less influence here than anywhere else. 
The sand-shoveler and the millionaire may change 
places to-morrow, and they know it; so the former 
does not usually cringe nor the other strut when they 
meet. They measure each other fairly; each has had 
his ups and downs; each pays the respect due to the 
character rather than to the money of the other. 

Nearly all the rich men and their wives commenced 
their adult lives with little save a common school edu- 
cation, some without even that; and they had t<> learn 
of late years what luxury is, and how it is enjoyed else- 
where by those accustomed to it from childhood. They 
have traveled; their money lias secured admission to 
the homes of the fashionable in the Atlantic states 
and Europe; they have observed closely and imitated 
well; and while here and their one has shown a weak 
vanity and made a vulgar display of riches, a- a gen- 
eral rule the Californian millionaires have worn their 
wealth modestlv, and have not been ashamed of their 



462 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

early poverty, or forgetful of their early friends. So 
many are now poor who a few years since were rich, 
and so many rich who a few years since were poor, so 
many rich people have near relatives among the poor, 
and there are so many possibilities, if not probabilities, 
of great change in the future pecuniary positions, that 
social lines are not drawn according to wealth and 
occupation, or are drawn less strictly here than else- 
where. The man counts more, and the occupation, 
family and wealth less socially here than elsewhere. 

Sec. 241. Swarming Out. San Francisco early 
became a central hive from which men swarmed out 
to other places in the basin of the Pacific, and carried 
progress and powerful influence with them. Har- 
greaves who had sailed back through the Golden Gate 
to his former home discovered the placers of Australia. 
From San Francisco went bands of adventurers to ex- 
plore the placers of Peru, New Granada, Honduras, 
various parts of Mexico, British Columbia, Idaho and 
Arizona. Meiggs, who became the leading railroad 
builder of South America, was a graduate of the 
Californian metropolis. The same city furnished E. 
D. Baker, a federal senator to Oregon, and J. P. 
Jones and Wm. Sharon to Nevada in the same capa- 
city, and many of their leading men to Arizona, 
Washington, Utah, British Columbia and the 
Hawaiian Islands. In the civil war, the former 
residents of the golden city held some of the highest 
positions on both sides. Virginia city is half colony 
and half suburb of the sunset metropolis. 



GENERALITIES. 4G3 

Sec. 242. Governmental Defects. Although the 
municipal administration while under control of the 
people's or taxpayer's party for nearly twenty years 
after the reform introduced by the influence of the 
vigilance committee of 1856, had its admirable feat- 
ures, and both democrats and republicans elected 
many able and honest men to federal, state and city 
office, still when we look back, the general impres- 
sion remains that the American government, as ob- 
served in its workings in San Francisco for the last 
quarter of a century, abounds with most serious de- 
fects. The management of the conventions of both 
the national parties has been to a great extent con- 
fided to men, many of whom were considered suspi- 
cious, if not notoriously dishonest. Most of the 
federal senators who reached a dictatorship, more or 
less qualified in their respective parties, and controlled 
or tried to control the federal patronage of the state, 
regarded the maintenance of their power and the gain- 
ing of influence to aid them in re-election or in other 
political advancement as the first consideration, in the 
distribution of the federal honors and profits, and were 
ready to turn out the official who refused to pay his 
personal court, or to render his personal service at 
needful occasions. The positions that could not be 
properly filled without experience and without the 
permanence that is one of the first demands of 
prudent business, have been treated as public plunder, 
the enjoyment of which by any one individual for 
more than four years was a wrong to others who had 






464: HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

done as much work for the party, often dirty work, 
and could not be deprived of their equal share of the 
spoils without danger of a revolt. Wherever the 
national political organizations have had control, no 
matter what their name or who their leader, we see 
the same management of the primary elections or 
ward meetings by a few professional politicians; a 
similar large proportion of absolutely disreputable 
men in the conventions; the same submission to such 
associations as if they were inevitable, by men of su- 
perior capacity; the same distribution of the offices as 
rewards for partisan service; the same brief tenure; 
the same disposition to shield from exposure any 
fraud committed by an official of their own party; the 
same silence among the leaders about the corrupting 
influence of rotation, and the other features of the 
spoils system; and the same tendency to distribute 
the profitable offices among those who would be use- 
ful lackeys, or at least submissive followers of the 
leader, or a small ring of leaders. 

The average legislator and member of congress in 
California have favored every abuse that would 
strengthen their influence in the conventions of their 
party, or pay a large revenue to their intimate friends. 
They fawned upon the powerful, assisted fraud in 
plundering the treasury, and oppressed the helpless 
victims of popular prejudice at every opportunity. 
Whenever two classes of the population had conflicting 
interests which could be affected by legislation, and 
which were introduced as issues into the political cam- 



GENERALITIES. 465 

paign, and one of the classes had no votes, or rela- 
tively few, the politicians sided with the other. N<> 
senator, no governor, no congressman ever raised his 
voice in protest against the wrong to individuals, or 
the injury to the state, unless there was a fair prosp< 
that he would gain more votes at the near elections by 
his speech than by his silence. In the course of years 
the hostility to the French miners, to the Spanish 
grant holders, to the equal taxation of mining prop- 
erty, to the sale of the mines, and to negro testimony 
in cases affecting white men, were exhausted by the 
the change of circumstances, and then leading politi- 
cians denounced the wrongs, when they could indulge 
their sympathies without losing votes, or pretend to 
have sympathies that would add to their popularity. 
There has always been great zeal for freedom and the 
common rights of humanity when its exhibition would 
catch votes. 

In no case has the legislature shown any magna- 
nimity or high devotion to justice; though if has often 
made loud pretensions when it saw a prospect of profit. 
It devised plans df oppression which the governor, the 
state courts, or the federal government frustrated 
Not less than fifty times "within a quarter of a century 
it has attempted great frauds upon the people, and has 
been defeated by the gubernatorial veto or by judicial 
decree. The governors of ( California have usually been 
men without any very high moral or intellectual 
character, but they were so far above the predominant 
level of the legislatures, and were held to such a dii 

30 



4:66 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

and undivided responsibility by public opinion, that 
the veto power entrusted to them has been of inesti- 
mable value in the protection of the community against 
legislative fraud and recklessness. 

Sec. 243. Literature and Art, The elements of 
literary activity are numerous in San Francisco, and 
a good foundation has been laid for successful author- 
ship in the future. The children are well educated; 
the habit of reading much and in good books is gen- 
eral; the predominant tone of society is intellectual; 
much of the original as well as of the extracted matter 
in the daily journals is well written, so that a good 
standard of taste has been established in the popular 
mind; and the public libraries are large, well selected 
and well patronized. An academy of sciences, a 
microscopical society, and various other scientific as- 
sociations have for years been accumulating knowl- 
edge, and much study has been given to the geology, 
botany, zoology and meteorology of the state. The 
wealth of the city has made a market for pictures, and 
half a dozen painters of much merit have established 
their permanent homes here; most of them giving 
their attention to landscape, for which abundant 
material is offered by the grand and varied scenery of 
the state. A few good figure pieces have been pro- 
duced here, and many have been obtained from Eu- 
rope. Few American cities are relatively better pro- 
vided with distinguished modern paintings. The art 
association gives two exhibitions annually. 

Although San Francisco has no native authors, the 



GENERALITIES. 4G7 

city has produced meritorious works in the depart- 
ments of history, science, jurisprudence, prose romance, 
poetry, travels, and humorous essay; but they are not 
high enough in general merit to deserve special men- 
tion in a brief historical record like this. As a class 
the humorous writers have made the most fame, and 
among these are F. B. Harte, Samuel Clemens (Mark 
Twain), and G. H. Derby (Phoenix). Harte gained 
his reputation beyond the limits of California by "The 
Heathen Chinee," some verses which owed their suc- 
cess not to their poetical merit, for they had none, but 
to their satire of the popular prejudice against the 
celestial immigrants. They called attention to better 
things that had been allowed to pass without notice, 
and in a few months he became one of the celebrities 
of the time and the founder of a new school of slangy 
fiction. 

One of the most meritorious literary works done in 
California, though not the likely to be appreciated at 
a distance immediately, or ever by general readers. Is 
the codification of the civil, penal and political law <»f 
the state. Most of the sections arc copied from the 
codes framed, though not adopted, in New York, but 
there is enough new matter based on careful researches 
and original thought to give a genuine Californian 
character to the legal syst< m, which will probably be 
copied in many of the other stat 

California, and especially San Francisco, where 
nearly all the authors reside, has made valuable con- 
tributions to many branches of literature. Among the 



468 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

names of the law writers are H. W. Hal leek, Gregory 
Yale, John Proffatt, A. C. Freeman; among the med- 
ical writers, L. C. Lane and H. H. Toland; among the 
historical writers, John W. Dwindle, Franklin Tut- 
hill, and H. H. Bancroft; among the writers of books 
of travels and adventure, John F. Swift, C. W. Stod- 
dard, Dr. Stillman, Theodore H. Hittell, and Josephine 
Clifford; and among the humorists, Bret Harte, Sam- 
uel Clemens (Mark Twain), and George H. Derby, 
who first wrote over the signature of Squibob and 
afterwards of Phoenix; and among the descriptive 
writers, B. P. Avery, B. E. Lloyd, and C. B. Turrill. 
"The Native Paces of the Pacific States," by H. H. 
Bancroft, is an archaeological work upon which a vast 
amount of research has been expended; and the "Amer- 
ican Decisions/' a compilation of the reports of the 
supreme courts of all the American states from 1775 
to 1869, to fill seventy-five large volumes, edited by 
John Proffatt, and published in San Francisco, is one 
of the leading literary enterprises of our time; and 
H. H. Bancroft is now engaged upon another of still 
greater magnitude in the amount of literary labor re- 
quired, an elaborate history of the western slope of our 
continent. 

Edward Pollock combined vigorous poetic fire with 
correct taste, and several of his pieces deserve to be 
counted among the best produced in our state, if not 
in our continent. Though " Evening " is inferior to 
many of his other poems, we make an extract from it 
on account of its local character: 



EXE RA L I TIES. 4G0 

The air is chill and the clay grows late, 

And the clouds come in through the Golden Gate; 

Phantom fleets they seem to me, 

From a shoreless and unsounded sea; 

Their shadowy spars and misty sails, 

Unshattered, have weathered a thousand gales; 

Slow wheeling, lo! in squadrons gray, 

They part and hasten along the bay, 

Each to its anchorage finding way. 

Where the hills of Saucelito swell, 

Many in gloom may shelter well; 

And others — behold ! unchallenged pass 
By the silent guns of Alcatraz; 
No greetings of thunder and flame exchange 
The armed isle and the cruisers strange. 
Their meteor flags, so widely blown, 
Were blazoned in a land unknown; 
So charmed from war, or wind, or tide, 
Along the quiet wave they glide. 

Frank Soule, whose name and writings are familiar 
to Californians, especially the early residents, has 
written much that has been received with high favor. 
" Watching beside Him" is one of his best piea 

The leaves turn yellow on the mournful willow, 

November's waves are sighing on the shore; 
And there's a fading cheek upon the pillow, 

That shall feel health no more. 
The leaves are falling and my friend is dying, 

Comes the destroyer nearer day by day, 
And like the leaves on Autumn's breezes Hying, 

His poor life flits away. 
But now the foliage and his life were vernal, 

How soon their Spring and Summer glow hath fled] 
I would have had their beauty made eternal — 
Ah me! but dust instead! 



470 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

The leaves have fallen! on the Autumn eddies, 

The last pale spectres float and disappear, 
And one poor body — there his quiet bed is — 

Is all that's left me here. 
All that is left me of his manly powers, 

All that is left of life so good and brief, 
All faded like the first frost-bitten flowers, 

And Autumn's withered leaf. 
In night's dark hours his spirit spread her pinions, 

Left in our clinging arms alone his form, 
Heaven lighted through the dark's obscure dominions, 
The starless gloom and storm. 

While by his faded form so sad and lonely, 

I sit, O mighty Monarch, I implore: 
Tell me, is life but this, this tell me only 

This and no more ? 
A few fair hopes, that never can be real, 

A few joys passing like the fleeting breath ? 
Is immortality but an ideal 

That terminates with death? 
Of all I loved so much, so dearly treasured, 

His manly beauty and his comely grace, 
By this dear faded form may life be measured, 
And this pale, silent face ? 

There comes no answer, though my heart is crying, 

No message from the spirit gone before, 
I hear, instead, the yeasty waves replying 

In sobs upon the shore. 
I hear the night-winds in the branches toning, 

Or rustling with the sere and fallen leaf, 
Their sad responses to my inward moaning, 

In pity to my grief. 
And so in loneliness, and doubt, and sorrow, 
I listen to each night hour's lagging tread, 
And silent wait the coming of to-morrow, 
In watch beside the dead. 



GENERALITIES. 471 

Charles Warren Stoddard, who of late years has 
neglected the muses, has shown in his earlier life de- 
cided poetical talent, though there is always a promise 
of more than he has yet accomplished. These lines 
are his : 

When my little love at purple dusk, 

Trips out upon the lawn among the flowers, 
The blushing roses quiver in their musk, 

Love-smitten through; the feathery fragrant showers 
Of snow-white blossoms drift upon the grass, 
Kissing her whispering footsteps as they pass. 

When my little love at evening's hush, 

Goes dancing down the dell with laugh and song, 

The slumbering echoes waken and a gush 
Of silvery voices greets her, and along 

The dewy clusters of the trailing vines 

In music mingles, murmurs and repines. 

Among our poets InaD. Coolbrith has a high place, 
and various pieces from her pen will probably be pre- 
served to distant times. The person who ean read 
without being touched her lines entitled " The Moth- 
er's Grief," is not to be envied: 

So fair the sun rose, y ester-morn, 

The mountain cliffs adorning! 
The golden tassels of the corn 

Danced in the breath of morning; 
The cool, clear stream that runs before, 

Such happy words was saying; 
And in the open cottage door 

My pretty babe was playing. 
Aslant the sill a sunbeam lay — 

I laughed in careless pleasure, 
To see his little hand essay 
To grasp the shining treasure. 



472 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

To-day no shafts of golden flame 

Across the sill are lying; 
To-day I call my baby's name, 

And hear no lisped replying; 
To-day — ah, bab} r mine, to-day — 

God holds thee in .his keeping! 
And yet I weep, as one pale ray 

Breaks in upon thy sleeping; 
I weep to see its shining* bands 

Keach, with a fond endeavor, 
To where the little restless hands 

Are crossed in rest forever ! 

Many pages of the most distinguished poets are 
filled with lines inferior in depth of feeling and merit 
of versification to that little piece. 

Josephine Walcott longed in her early youth to visit 
California, and having now made her home in the 
state, thus addresses it : 

It haunted me amid the sunrise splendor — 

A golden dream of sunset and of thee; 
'Mid dusky woodlands or by shining rivers, 
On granite hilltops, or by Orient sea. 

***** 
Fair land of sunset, my young dream fulfilling — 

For I have followed thy sweet thought, O youth! 
And from thy purple hills and golden heather 

Shall sing new bards, with grand prophetic truth. 

Thy seas shall bear white ships to safest harbor; 

Thy valleys yield sweet wealth of fruit and grain; 
Thy regal hillsides glow with purple vintage; 

Thy tender skies fall Summer sun and rain. 

Thy sons shall be as gods of classic story; 

Thy regal daughters noble, fair and strong. 
From thy new world shall rise immortal heroes, 

O golden land of labor , art and song! 



QENERALITn i7.5 



Emilie Lawson is another swee< singer of whom 

California may be proud. She writes with an even 
inspiration, when she does write, but, like many oth- 
ers, finds little leisure for the indulgence of poetic 
fancy. The following, entitled "What Does it Mat- 
ter ?" is from her pen: 

What does it matter, dear, though I go soon, 

Before the golden cups are gathered all; 
Before the burning heat of Summer noon, 

Or the cold storm of Autumn-time shall fall; 
What does it matter ? If I sooner go, 

Wearing unfaded violets on my breast — 
With loaded wains, the reapers, tired and slow, 
Will sighing pass the grasses o'er my rest, 
And sighing, drop a tear — 
What will it matter, dear? 

What will it matter, sweet, if I grow old, 

And Summer's pleasant fields grow bleak and bare, 
A few brief days of sunshine or of cold, 

A few short hours of pleasure or of care? 
What will it matter if I wearier stay 

To reap the fruitage of the sober Fall, 
To put the earlier gathered flowers away; 

What is the gain or loss if, after all, 

A little longer stay my feet— 
What will it matter, sweet? 

What matters it, dear heart, if far or near 

Waits the Death Angel — noiselessly and dumb; 
For, if I stay, love-fetters bind me here, 

And, if I go, dear voices whisper, Come! 
Though dark and thick the shadows intervene, 

The clouds are sometimes rifted, \uu\ I see 
The beautiful dim vale that lies between 

The world that is and that which is to be — 
Only a step apart — 
What matters it, dear heart ? 



474 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

Joaquin Miller shows in many passages that he has 
strong poetical talent; but his works are uneven, and 
most of them are published prematurely, without the 
patient polish. We have not at hand any of the pas- 
sages that have seemed to us to be his best, and for a 
quotation we must be content with the following trib- 
ute to the local pride of our state : 

Dared I but say a prophecy, 
As sung the holy men of old, 
Of rock-built cities yet to be 
Along those shining shores of gold, 
Crowding athirst into the sea, 
What wondrous marvels might be told! 
Enough to know that empire here 
Shall burn her loftiest brightest star; 
Here art and eloquence shall reign, 
As o'er the wolf-reared realm of old; 
Here learned and famous from afar, 
To pay their noble court shall come, 
And shall not seek or see in vain, 
But look on all with wonder dumb. 

Bret Harte has, in a high degree, some of the qual- 
ities required for the successful poet, but most of his 
verses are seriously defective in some material point. 

About twenty years ago, when flumes (wooden 
aqueducts carrying the water of mining ditches over 
ravines sometimes two hundred feet deep) were prom- 
inent features in the scenery and contributed much to 
the wealth of the state, Mrs. Thomas Fitch (as her 
name is now), wrote "The Song of the Flume," the 



GENERALITIES. 475 

best effort to throw the charm of poetry upon any 
branch of Californian mining industry. It says . 
I sought the shore of the sounding sea 

From the far Sierra's height, 
"With a starry breast and a snow-capped crest, 

I foamed in a path of light; 
But they bore me thence in a winding way — 

They fettered me like a slave, 
And as serfs of old were sold for gold, 

So they bartered my soil-stained wave. 
****** 
Lift me aloft to the mountain brow ! 

Fathom the deep blue vein ! 
And I'll sift the soil for the shining toil, 

As I sink to the valley again; 
The swell of my swarthy breast shall bear 

Pebble and rock away, 
Though they brave my strength, they shall yield at length, 

And the glittering gold shall stay. 

Many others have written verses in California, at 
least as good as some here quoted, but copies of their 
best pieces are not within convenient reach. Among 
the poets who are dismissed with a mere mention of 
the name, are James F. Bowman, Daniel O'Conncll, 
F. H. Gassaway, Mrs. E. A. Simon ton Page and Ly- 
man Goodman. 

Sec. 244. Condition in 1878. The business of 
San Francisco is very active. In 1877 the clearingi 
house transactions amounted to $500,000,000; the 
stock sales (for which it was a dull year) to $120,- 
000,000; the exports (including $73,000,000 of tn 
ure, and §41,000,000 of merchandise) to si 14,000,000; 



476 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO: 

the coinage to §46,000,000; the real estate sales to 
$18,000,000; and the taxes collected to §13,771,000, 
including §6,700,000 of duties on imports, §1,900,000 
of federal internal revenue, §3,423,000 for the support 
of the municipal government and §1,754,000 con- 
tributed to the state government. The street work 
(grading, sewering, paving, etc.) cost §1,860,000, and 
most of this sum paid by the owners of lots fronting 
on the streets improved is not counted in the §3,423,- 
000 of city revenue previously mentioned. One fourth 
of the revenue of the city, and more than a fourth of 
that of the state, is spent in maintaining free schools. 
The city has a debt of $3,500,000, relatively one of 
the smallest city debts in the United States. 

California has a total area of 100,000,000 acres, 
including 30,000,000 held under private ownership, 
20,000,000 of unoccupied federal land valuable for 
cultivation; only 4,000,000 under cultivation, 2,500,- 
000 bearing temperate fruit trees, 300,000 bearing 
sub-tropical fruit trees, 400,000 English walnut and 
almond trees; 30,000,000 grape vines; 6,000,000 
sheep; 200 gold quartz mills; 4,000 miles of 
mining ditches ; private property worth not less 
than §1,000,000,000, and an industry that adds §30,- 
000,000 annually in the shape of houses, fences, 
roads, canals, street improvements, orchards, recla- 
mation dykes, and so forth, to the wealth of the 
state. She lias besides, what is worth more than all 
her pecuniary treasuries, a population of about 875,000 
people of the best blood and highest intelligence of 



GENERALITIES 177 

the age; and her excellent school system and able 
press give assurance that her inhabitants in the future 
shall not he inferior to those iu the present. There 
is a nominal state debt of $3,300,000, but $2,700,000 
of this is due to certain departments of the state gov- 
ernment, leaving 1 a true debt of onlv ^000,000. The 
counties owe $12,000,000 of funded and floating debt, 
and have public buildings and other property worth 
considerably more. 

Sec. 245. Conclusion. The first era of San Fran- 
cisco was that of the Indians. They lived in a low 
stasre of savaorism, and left no arts, no literature, no 
legend, no institutions, no durable monuments of their 
own designing, and no names worthy of perpetuation. 
The red men who occupied the site of the city and its 
vicinity in 1776, have, so far as we know, not a living 
descendant anywhere, having died out entirely from 
the face of the earth. 

The Mission Era continued for forty -nine year-, from 
1770 to 1835, and was a period of ecclesiastical rule, 
in which the chief purposes of life were worship, 
humiliation, and quiet submission to the church au- 
thorities, without anxiety or p up 
with the fashion, learning, or political oi intellectual 
progress of tli e age Tho Indians learned littleofthe 
arts of civilization, never adopl 

ilv decreased in numbers, so that, unle s there bad 
been a change in the ratio of births to deaths, the race 
must have died out at no distant time even if it had 
never been subjected to additional demoralizing inilu- 



478 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

ences of the Mexican revolution, secularization, the 
American conquest, American immigration, and the 
reservation system. 

The Village Era beofan when the control of the mis- 
sion property, including the whole peninsula for thirty 
miles from the Golden Gate, was taken from the 
friars, and given to the civil authorities. The promise 
of the government that land, agricultural implements 
and cattle should be furnished to the Indians was not 
kept; the personal property disappeared in an unex- 
plained manner, and the red men made no application 
for lots or ranchos. Large tracts of land on the 
peninsula were granted to the Mexican residents, who 
lived in the pastoral condition on the produce of their 
neat cattle, with little labor, ambition or education. 
On the shore of Yerba Buena cove rose a village 
which was the chief shipping port of San Francisco 
bay under the Mexican dominion, and from the time 
when the stars and stripes were hoisted, the chief 
center of American business and influence on the 
western side of our continent. 

Before the title of the United States to the new 
territory on the Pacific had been fully acknowledged, 
the Golden Era began. The yield of the mines rose 
for five years until it reached about $60,000,000. 
Several hundred thousand immigrants came from the 
shores of the Atlantic, and gave to California a popu- 
lation unsurpassed in enterprise and intelligence. A 
government was organized; the state admitted into 
the Union; a metropolitan city built; and commodi- 
ous routes of travel established, connecting San Fran- 



GENERALITIES. 479 

cisco with the mines on one side, and New York on 
the other. The mines being on public land, were 
thrown open to everybody, aliens as well as citizens, 
without charge; and the government would not sell 
homes to those who wished to buy for the purpose of 
settlement, so that the population became migratory 
as a matter of necessity, and the more numerous the 
miners, the more the district was impoverished. 

The period from 1854 to 1859 inclusive, called here 
" The Golden Era in Decline," was marked by a 
decrease in the gold yield, which was not arrested by 
the discovery of the vast deposits of auriferous gravel 
in the dead rivers of the Sierra Nevada, the invention 
of the hydraulic process of washing, and its applica- 
tion on an immense scale, and the construction of a 
dozen great mining ditches, which in length, supply 
of water, height of aqueducts and boldness of en- 
gineering design mi^ht rival some of the most famous 
water-works of old and populous empires. The in- 
crease of agricultural production caused a falling off 
in the shipping and imports of San Francisco, and a 
depression in her business. The immigration to Cali- 
fornia across the continent, after having numbered 
twenty thousand as an annual average for four years 
after the gold discovery, became insignificantly small, 
and that by sea was much reduced, though the com- 
pletion of the Panama railroad made tin- trip cheaper 
and more comfortable than before, though a, com- 
parison of the arrivals and departures, showed a rela- 
tively slight excess for the former, there was a great 
gain in the quality of the population, for many soli- 



480 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

tary men were replaced by women and children who 
gave to California social attractions previously lack- 
ing. The political abuses which had been overlooked 
in more prosperous times provoked the indignation of 
good citizens and the vigilance committee of 1856, 
the wisest, justest and most prudent association ever 
organized to violate the law, held power for three 
months, punished a multitude of criminals and puri- 
fied the city government, which was then for fifteen 
years placed in charge of officials selected under rules 
that allowed little influence to the system of partisan 
spoils. The southern part of the county was cut off 
to make San Mateo, while " the city and county of 
San Francisco," as now styled in law was organized 
under the consolidation act. In 1858 it was reported 
and extensively believed that gold mines, as rich and 
extensive as those of the Sierra Nevada were in 1848, 
had been discovered in the basin of Fraser river; and 
so large was the migration to that region, so exten- 
sive the preparations of others to follow, and so 
depressed many branches of occupation, that in the 
opinion of many persons California and San Fran- 
cisco were about to sink, for some years at least, into 
subordinate places in the business of the western side 
of our continent. The failure of Adams k Co., and 
of Page, Bacon k Co., the frauds and flight of Harry 
Meiggs, the election of D. C. Broderick to the federal 
senate, and his death in a duel with D. S. Terry, who 
had resigned his office as chief justice of the supreme 
court of the state for the purpose of resenting a public 
insult, were other events of this era. 



GENERALITIES. 

The last period in the history of San Francisco, from 
I860 to 1878, is here called "The Silver Era," because 
of the great influence exerted on the city's business by 
the yield of bullion from the argentiferous deposits <»t 
Nevada. The increase of grain fields, orchards, vine- 
yards, dairies, sheep, irrigation ditches, manufactures, 
and railroads, the connection by an iron track with the 
Atlantic slope, the acquisition and diffusion of knowl- 
edge about the scenery, salubrity and climate of the 
state, and the general recognition of San Francisco as 
one of the chief centers of luxurious enjoyment con- 
tributed to give it a prosperity higher in many respects 
than it had during the Hush times of placer mining, 
have thus traced the growth of San Francisco, 
this metropolitan prodigy, this young municipal giant, 
from its small and rude beginnings, through a brief 
career, to its present condition of magnitude afid mag- 
nificence, through a record without its like elsewhere' 
in the variety, multitude and startling character of it- 
impressive incidents. The city, as it now stands, is an 
embodiment of the highest enlightenment of our time, 
one of the most brilliant products and greatest tri- 
umphs of the industrial art, commerce, wealth and 
intelligence of the nineteenth century, and a splendid 
illustration of the popular energy developed under the 
free political institutions of the United States, -insti- 
tutions which, seriously defective as they are in some 
important respects, have yet given a stimulus to en- 
terprise which no people under a despotic government 
have ever approached. 

31 



APPENDIX. 



AUTHORITIES. 

I give my authorities in this appendix rather than in foot-notes, but in 
many places it is implied by the nature of events and the enterprise of the 
newspaper press that full accounts can be found in the public journals of the 
day. Some of my information is obtained from my own recollections, notes 
and publications, and more from conversation with citizens who participated 
in the events described. 

Among those to whom I am indebted are Mrs. Carmen Bernal, a native of 
San Jose, who came as a bride only fifteen yeans old, in 1819, to live at the 
Mission, and Mr. Charles Brown, who came to San Francisco in 1S2'.). These 
are the oldest residents of San Francisco. 

I must express my obligations to the chronological tables, extending from 
1S57 to 1877, in the directories published by H. < r. Langley, and in the Sac- 
ramento "Union" from I860 to 187S. Similar tables appeared from 1873 to 
1877, in the "Alta Almanac." 

The following is a list of books and periodicals to which I am indebted for 
information : 

" Daily Alta California," newspaper; the "Alta California Almanac," 1868 
to 1879. 

"Annals of San Francisco," by Frank Souk'-, J. H. Gihon and James 
Xisbet. This work gives a history of the city in the form of a diary from 
January, 1847, to June, 1854. With many defects, it contains much interest- 
ing information, well presented. Besides its text, it has engravings of many 
of the notable buildings, portraits and brief biographies of pioneers, and 
special chapters on the bounds, the vigilance committee of 1851, cemeteries, 
churches, schools, amusements, lires, lire department, hotels, and steamer 
days. 

"Native lb-ices of the Pacific States," by II. EL Bancroft, l s 7">. 5vol& 

" Daily Evening Bulletin," newspaper. 

"Miii and Memories of San Francisco in fch< ". " by T. A. 

P>arry and B. A. Patten, San Francisco, ]s7s. Personal reminiscences of 
men, buildings and events, with many amusing anecdotes, written in an a_ 

able style. 

"Narrative of n Voyage to the Pacific, under the command of 1". \Y. 
Beechey. London, 1831. Chapter XIII treats of the condition of the Mis- 
sions in 1S2(5. 

•• Utily Morning Call," newspaper. 



484 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

1 ' Our Centennial Memoir Founding of the Missions, San Francisco de Asia 
in its hundredth year. The celebration of its foundation," compiled by P. J. 
Thomas, San Francisco, 1877. 

"Daily San Francisco Chronicle," newspaper. 

Two journals of this name have flourished in San Francisco; the first es- 
tablished in 1855, by Frank Soulc, existed till the spring of 1858; the Chroni- 
cle now in existence was founded in 18G5, by C. & M. H. De Young. 

" Directory of San Francisco, 1857," by Samuel Colville. The introduc- 
tion is a good historical sketch of the city from 1835 to 1856. The book con- 
tains the names of the officers of tho vigilance committee of 185C, and though 
this list is declared on a subsequent page to be incorrect, there are few errors 
in it. 

" The Commercial Herald and Market Review." This is a weekly com- 
mercial paper, established in 18G7, and still nourishing. The number issued 
about the middle of January contains a comprehensive review of the com- 
merce and general industry of the state for the preceding year. Most of the > 
figures published in the statistical tables on a subsequent page are taken from 
the "Herald." 

"The Conquest of California," by J. M. Cutts, 1847. Mr. Cutts derives a 
large part of the material of his work from the government records at Wash- 
ington, and gives copies of documents not easily obtained elsewhere. 

"Colonial History of San Francisco," by John W. Dwindle. Mr. Dwi- 
ndle was counsel for the city in her suit for four square leagues of land in 
the United States courts, and in that capacity gathered much of the informa- 
tion hero presented, lie devotes most of his space to cvent3 that happened 
between 1835 and 1846; and gives copies of many legal documents. 

"Daily Examiner," newspaper. 

"First Steamship Pioneers," edited by a committee of the association, 
1874. A record of the voyage of the steamship " California " from Panama 
to San Francisco in February, 1849, and of the adventures of her passengers, 
between New' York and San Francisco, and after their arrivals. 

"Life Adventures and Travels in California," by T. J. Farnham. 

" A History of Upper and Lower California," by Alexander Forbes, 1839. 

" A History of the Catholic Church in California," by lie v. Mr. Gleeson, 
1S74. 

"Centennial Year Book of Alameda County," by William Halley, 1876, 
pp. 590. This volume contains a history cf Oakland. 

"Resources of California," by John S. Hittell. 6th edition, 1S74. pp. 
450. This book has comprehensive chapters on tho topography, climate, 
salubrity, geology, botany, zoology, agriculture, mining, manufactures, com- 
merce and society of the state. 

"Hutchings' Monthly Magazine, 1857 to 1860." This publication contains 
chronological lists of the notable events of San Francisco i:i 1S59 and 1860. 

"Voyage Autour du Monde," par J. F. G. La Pcrousc, 1797. He speaks 
of tho condition of the Indians at tho Missions without praise. 

"Directory of San Francisco," by II. G. Langley, 1S5S to 187S. Mr. 
Langley issued his first directory in 185S, and followed it with new volumes 
at intervals of about a year. Each volume contains a chronological table of 
events for the previous year, and gives an estimate cf tho population, and 
new buildings, and descriptions of the most notable improvements. 

" Lights and shades in San Francisco," by B. E. Lloyd, 1876. Pp. 500. 
A description of prominent features of San Francisco life as seen in 1876. 
Stock speculation, tho Palace Hotel, restaurants, the disreputable quarters, 
W. C. ltalston, James Lick, street railroads, tho newspapers, the hotels, the 



APPEXDIX. iv, 

schools, the churches, the theatre;?, the clubs, the fortifications, the chftj 
the markets, and the cemeteries, have- each their special chapter, 

"Mis \ Berieaof eleven volumes of Spanish archives in tl, 

of the United States surveyor-general for California. The volnmi 
nearly all the statistics preserved of the Mission of San Franci 

"Missions and Colonization." Another series of volumes in the 
archi 

''Hotels and Hotel Life at San Francisco," by W. L. 1870 

Pp. 4 •>. 

•'Municipal Reports of the City and County of San Francisco." A seri< a 
of annual reports, commencing in 1861, giving the information for i 
year since. The volumes are designated in the references by mention of the 
year in which published. If for 1865-66, for instance, it was published in 
the latter year, and is styled the report of 1800. The following referent 
these volumes may he of service: Gas supply, 1ST"), appendix. Tab 
grades, 1874, 683; 1S77, 033. Pueblo title, 1868. A list of rail- 
chises, 1S74, G59; 1877, 004. Accepted street.-, i -77. 967, 101 '. M : ■• 
eryavenu 0. Widening Dupont Btreet, 1-77. 1025. Li 

lerty, 1873,618; 1877,929. Water rates, projects and litigation, II 
000. Outside lands, 1868,549; L869, 553; LS71, -i-".». City officials I 
1850 to 1867; 1800, 183; 1863, 285; 1867, 521. 

"Exploration du Territoiro dc [/Oregon, des Californies, etc," par ; 
do Mof ras, 1844. This work 1 I account of California as it v.. 

1842, l)iit exaggerates the value of the missionary labor. 

"Noticias de la Nueva California." A collection < f Spanish records of the 
movements of the friars in Upper California, between 1700 and 17 j 
much relating to the foundation of the Mission of San Francisc 
Palou wrote most of their book. 

"The Overland Monthly, 1 ' from July, 1SG8, to December. 1875. 
magazine contains a number of carefully written articles upon San . 
and California. 

"The Tioneer Magazine," from January, 1854, to December, 
sides several good articles on local topics, this magazine published a chl 
logical list of events for the two years of it existence. 

"Daily San Francisco Evening Post." In December, 1876, I 
contained a valuable series of articles on the harbor of San 1Y. 
work of the harbor commission, and in the fall of 1S78 a scries of remi 
cences by Judge McGowan. 

"Provincial State Papers in Spanish Archil 

"Oration at the Annual Celebration of tl. 9 of Californ 

in I860," by Edmund Randolph. Along and a 
ation about the early history of ( 'alifornia. 

" The Appendix " to the journ lof the 1 journal 

contains tho reports of executive officers of the state administration. 
"Adjutanl 

ten regiments of California 
of them west of the Rocky Mounta 

I the California battalion which v. • 

"Vida de Junii i Palou. The I 

Junipero Serra, lent of rau California from 

written by i Palou, his companion and friend, include 

the foundation of the i 

"A Voyage Round tho World," by 8 i Simpson. Simpson' 

San Francisco in 1841, and gives an account of it as it was then. 



486 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

" Seeking the Golden Fleece," by J. D. B. Stillman, 1877. Pp. 340. This 
volume gives an excellent account of the gold excitement in the Atlantic 
states, the adventures of a shipload of adventurers coming round Cape Horn 
in 1849, and life in San Francisco and the mines in 1849-50. 

"History of the Public School System of California," by John Swett, 187G. 
Pp. 250. 

"The History of California," by Franklin Tuthill, I860. Pp. 640. A 
good history, and especially full in the chapter on the vigilance committee of 
1856. 

"The Daily Sacramento Union," newspaper. 

"Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific," by George Vancouver. Van- 
couver visited San Francisco in 1792, and described the condition of the 
Presidio. Chapter XI treats of the missions, and conveys the impression 
that the Indians were still in a semi-savage condition. 

" The United States Exploring Expedition," by George Wilkes. 

REFERENCES. 

Such a reference as this, " Alta, 1856, VI, 5," means "Daily Alta," 1856, 
sixth month, fifth day; that is, June 5, 1856. The roman numerals after the 
year indicate the number of the month, the Arabic the day. In the refer- 
ences to books, unless otherwise marked, the roman numerals indicate the 
volume and the Arabic the page. 

For evidence that force was used in catching Indians for conversion, see 
' ' Beechey, " chapter XIII; ' ' Forbes, " chapter V; " Gleeson;" ' ' Vancouver, " 
chapter XI; and "Belcher," Vol. I, Ch. V. 

Dwindle in his address at the Centennial Anniversary of the foundation of 
the Mission over-estimated the income. 

Mofras (I, 320) and Dwinelle (44) in my opinion exaggerate the merits of 
the missionary labor, and the evils of secularization. 

Dwinelle (26), in his "Colonial History," says there were at the Mission of 
San Francisco, in 1794, 724 men and women, and 189 boys and girls; in 1800, 
575 men and women, and 69 boys and girls respectively; in 1815, 913 adults 
and 182 minors; and in 1830, 193 adults and 26 minors. These figures imply 
that there were never fewer than four adults for one minor, and sometimes 
eight. In civilized nations generally there are at least five minors for four 
adults. Mr. Dwinelle understands the Spanish word adult os, as given in the 
mission records to mean adults. But this is a mistake. Adidtos there sig- 
nifies persons over eight years. If the proportion between adults and minors 
were correctly represented, the figures would prove that the influence of the 
missions upon the life of the Indians was much more destructive than it 
really was. 

Full information about nearly all the land grants is given in Dwinelle's 
"Colonial History." 

Dwinelle, on page 78 of his "Appendix" gives a list of the people living 
at the Mission in 1842. 

The best authorities upon the conquest are "Cutts" and the "Annals." 
The "Call " of March 11, 1877, gives a list of the residents of Yorba Buena 
at the time of the conquest. 

Governmental affairs of the city from 1849 to 1854, are treated at consid- 
erable length, and with general accuracy in the "Annals." 

Hoffman's Report contains a list of the land cases before the commission, 
with the areas of the claims and disposition made of them. The squatter 
law called an act to quiet titles was passed March 26, 1S56. A copy of 
G win's supplemental land bill may be found in the "Alta," 1856, XII, 12. 



APPENDIX. 487 

For an account of Broderick's early career see the "Chronicle" of June 
10, 187G. 

The campaign speeches of 1859, published by the "Sacramento Union," 
contain most of the material required for a history of the senatorial election 
of 1S57. See speeches by Broderick, reported on the eleventh, nineteenth 
and twentieth of July; and on the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth, eighteenth 
and twenty-sixth of August; by Gwin on the fifteenth, eighteenth and twen- 
ty-ninth of July, and on the first, second and fifteenth of August; by Latham 
on the twenty-third of July, and on the third and twelfth of August, and by 
Tilford on the fourth of August. A letter by Tilford that appeared on the 
twenty-second of July, and one by Gwin on the fifteenth of August, and a 
pamphlet by Pixley on the twenty-sixth of August, were also part of the 
campaign. 

For the early history of the Comstock lode see a series of papers published 
in the "Mining and Scientific Press" for 187G and 1S77. The precise dates 
can be ascertained from the index published at the end of each year. 

For the early history of the Consolidated Virginia bonanza, see "Post" 
1S7G, I, 13. 

The deeds of James Lick to his trustees arc given in the " Alta Almanac " 
of 1875, 187G and 1S77. 

A history of the press of the state and a list of nearly all the papers up t) 
that date is given in the "Sacramento Union," 1858, XII, 25. 

For testimony in reference to Jtalston's use of the money of the Bank of 
California, over-issue of stock, etc., see the "Bulletin " of July 27, 1876. 

The following arc references to comprehensive articles in various publica- 
tions: 

History of the California Steam Navigation Co., "Bulletin," 1876, X, 11. 

Names of Residents of Ycrba Buena in July, 184G, "Call," 1S77, III, 11. 

Dividends of Gas and Water Companies, 1807-1876, "Bulletin," 1S77, IV. 

List of Stars at the California Theatre, 1SG9-77, "Spirit of the Times," 
1877, V, 5. 

Blunders in the management of the public lands in California, "Alta," 
1877, XII, 5. 

Number of votes cast by the leading towns of California at the Presidential 
election, Nov. 7, IS7G, " Alta Almanac," 1S77. 37. 

History of San Francisco Cemeteries, "Call," 1877, IV, 19; V, 13. 

Notable wrecks on the coast, 1S49- 1S77, "Chronicle," 1S77, IX, 23. 30. 

In August and September, 1877, the "Chronicle" published a number of 
carefully prepared articles, giving the history and production of the leading 
Comstock mines. 

History of the Supreme Court of California, "Alta Almanac for 1S74." 

History of "Morning Call," newspaper; "Call," 1878, III, 10. 

History of Savings Banks of San Francisco, "'Call." 1877, \'U, 22. 

Officials of San Francisco and their pay, "Bulletin," 1877, VI, 23. 

Millionaires of San Francisco, "Bulletin," 1877, VII, 21. 

History and condition of San Francisco churches, "Bulletin," 1S77, VII. 
21. 

History of banking in California. "Coast Review," 1877, V 
1877, III, 30. 

History of wholesale grocerv business in San Francisco. "Bulletin," 1878, 
I. 11. 

Flection frauds, '•Bulletin," 1S77, IX, 15. 

History of Oakland water front. "Oakland Transcript," 1877. X. 20. 



488 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 

History of elections of federal senators in California, "Bulletin," 1877, 
XII, 10. 

List of nominees at all state elections, 1849-1877, "Bulletin," 1877, XII. 
History of Golden Gate Park, "Bulletin," 1878, I, 26. 

The governors of California since its organization as a state have been the 
following, with the dates of their installation: Peter H. Burnett, Dec. 20, 
1849; John McDougall, Jan. 9, 1851; John Bigler, Jan. 8, 1852; John Bigler, 
Jan. 8, 1854; J. Neely Johnson, Jan. 8, 1856; John B. Weller, Jan. 8, 1858; 
Milton S. Latham, Jan. 8, 1860; John G. Downey, Jan. 14, 1860; Leland 
Stanford, Jan. 8, 1862; Frederick F. Low, Dec. 2, 1S63; Henry H. Haight, 
Dec. 5, 1867; Newton Booth, Dec. 8, 1871; Itomualdo Pacheco, Feb. 27, 
1S75; and William Irwin, Dec. 9, 1875. 

McDougall, Downey and Pacheco were elected to the office of lieutenant- 
governor, but succeeded to the office of governor when Burnett, Latham and 
Booth resigned. The term before 1863 was two years; afterwards four years. 

The following is a list of the chief executive officers of the town and city 
since the American conquest, with the dates of their installation : W. A. Bart- 
lett, July 9, 1846; Edwin Bryant, Feb. 22, 1847; George Hyde, June, 1847; T. 
M. Leavenworth,. April, 1848; J. W. Geary, Aug. 1, 1849; J. W. Geary, May 
1, 1850; C. J. Brenham, April 28, 1851; S. R. Harris, Sept. 3, 1851; C. J. 
Brenham, Nov. 2, 1851; C. K. Garrison, Sept. 7, 1853; S. P.Webb, Sept. 3, 
1854; James Van Ness, May 2S, 1855; E. W. Burr, July 1, 1856; H. F. 
Teschemacher, July 1, 1859— July 1, 1862; H. P. Coon, July 1, 1863; Frank 
McCoppin, Dec. 2, 1867; T. H. Selby, July 1, 1869; Wm. Alvord, July 1, 
1871; James Otis, July 1, 1873; George Hewston, Nov. 4, 1875; A. J. Bry- 
ant, Dec. 4, 1875. 

Before May 1, 1850, the title of the chief executive officer was alcalde; 
from that day till July 1, 1856, mayor; then for six years, president of the 
board of siipervisors; and since July 1, 1862, mayor. 

I have inserted in the text, without quotation marks several short passagey 
written by me and previously published. 

Instead of " monkish, " on page 39, the word should be "monastic;" and 
on page 55, " afternoon mass" should be "afternoon prayers." 

STATISTICS. 

The dividends paid by the mining companies incorporated in San Francisco 
had in the sixteen years ending with 1877, amounted to $113,000,000, and the 
assessments to $65,000,000. 

The aggregate value of the shares listed in the San Francisco stock board3 
was at the market rates $284,000,000, on one day of January, 1875, and $92,- 
000,000, in a day of November of the same year, making a fluctuation of 
$192,000,000 in eleven months. The largest variation in any one month was 
$139,000,000, the smallest $21,000,000; the average for each month counting 
only from the highest to the lowest $50,000,000. 

The assessed value of the land and buildings within the city limits west of 
Lark in and Ninth streets and south of Mission creek, was $1,200,000 in 1860, 
and in 1S76 more than $50,000,000. 

The number of street lamps increased more than tenfold from 1860 to 1S76. 

The banking capital of California at the close of 1876, as shown by full 
statistics in the "Bulletin" of February 10, 1S77, was $182,000,000 (includ- 
ing capital and deposits), and San Francisco had four fifths of the whole. 



APPENDIX. 



489 



At the end of 1876 there were 27,000 buildings in San Francisco, and of 
these 4, 390 were of brick, end nearly all the others of wood. Of loOO houses 
erected in 1876, all save 36 were of wood. 

The following condensed statistics furnish in a small space much informa- 
tion about the growth and present condition of the industry and traffic of San 
Francisco and California. For explanations see the remarks after each table: 





1 

Population 
in Thou- 
sands. 


d 

OX! 






MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. 








Deposit 1:1 
Savings 
Buiks. 


a 



ft 

Q 

H 


m 

.5 3 


to 

•S 2 
— ui 

ED 


m 




Central 

Pacin s Rail- 

road. 


% 


YEAR. 


6 
gl 

t-c 


a 

O 


c 
g'S 

u 






"3 


'n 

H 




a 

v\ 
•A 


*Hft 

ca 




J8I8 


Gl 

1'6 


1 




















1839 





















18G0 
















:;;;: 






18G1 


83 

92 

103 

113 

119 






















1862 






















18G3 
















10 

2o 

49 

33 

55 

11G 

GO 

5L 

128 

190 

14G 

2 GO 

220 

225 

120 






43 


18G4 




















31 


1805 


...„. 

G 

G 

8 
10 
11 
13 
19 
22 
27 
S3 
4'J 


1075 

'l050 

97. 3 
85J 
900 
828 
GOO 
G71 
1359 
1389 
1C00 
1250 








2 
2 
4 
2 
1 
2 
5 


2 

1 
1 
2 
1 






1GG 


18GG 


10 
17 
22 
27 
31 
3/ 
42 
52 
55 
CG 
CO 






i 

2 
G 
7 
9 
12 
13 
It 
17 
19 
17 


"l" 

3 

4 

4 

5 

5 

5 

7 
17 
15 


13 


18G7 

13G8 

18G9 

1870 


131 
143 
170 


1 
1 
2 
5 
7 
9 
11 
11 

14 
14 


11 


245 
111 

17J 
110 


1871 

]872 


173 
178 

18 5 
201 
2:0 
270 
308 


05 

195 


1873 

1874 

18 To. .. 


20 
20 
30 
39 
C9 


13 

12 
15 

24 
25 


7 

7 

12 

12 

13 


85 
140 
183 


]87J 

1877 


357 
300 











The population of San Francisco for various years from 1S58 to 1S76, a3 
given above in thousands, and the number of new buildings in the city are 
tak< .1 from the estimates in Langley's directories. The similar figures for the 
population of Oakland arc from local estimates. The amounts of money de- 
posited in the savings banks cf San Francisco, and in those of other t< 
California, the dividends by all companies and by mining companies, the 
assessments levied by mining companies, and the earnings and expenses of 
the Central Pacific railroad company, are in millions of dollars. The sta- 
tistics on this table, save these about Oakland, the interior savings banks, 
ami the miles of railroad built, relate to the business of San Fran 

In the following table the taxable property of San Francisco, Oakland, and 
the state, the amount of real estate sales in San Francisco and Oaklai 
sums collected a3 federal revenue, and these paid as freights on cargoes com- 
ing from foreign and domestic Pacine ports (those from domestic 
are not included), arc in millions of dollars; the amounts of freight from 
Panama and China, and by rail passing across the continent v 
eastward, are given in thousands of tons; and the expenses of thee: 
crnment of San Francisco are in thousands of dollars. The westward rail- 



490 



HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



road freight includes all received at Ogden from California; the eastward 
freight includes only that from San Francisco, San Josa, Stockton, Sacra- 
mento and Marysvillo for Ogden or points beyond. The yeara are calendar 
years. 







MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. 




Fbeight is 
Thousands op Tons. 


W 




Taxable Property. 


Real Estate 
Sales. 


s 

> 

O 


<a 

a 
3 

& 

to 

s 

g 


Is 

02 


YEAR. 


6 


i \ i 

£ ! "8 

° i 


6 

o 

EC 

5*3 

£ g 

u 


3 

O 


« 

B B 

O e3 


§1 

£3 


to • 


2 

o 














o 
2 

2 
2 
1 
2 
2 
1 












6"0 




22 
14 

18 

29 

33 

32 

30 

33 

31 

30 

36 

42 

67 

77 

81 

88 

«J7 

100 

106 

115 

1(6 

105 

209 

212 

261 

209 

254 




58 

40 

Co 

95 

111 

104 

95 

123 
















1813 
45G 

1009 


1852 

1853 

J 834 

1853 




















12 
5 
4 
5 
o 






















1832 






2646 
85G 














1837 

1858 

1859 














353 
36G 


4 
7 
9 












! 121 

. . 131 









11 

18 
28 
31 
25 
33 
32 
68 
3S 
11 
18 
27 
22 
29 
27 








481 
745 


1861. 

1862 

1863 

1864 

1835 


...... 

""l" 

1 

1 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

5 

7 
10 
20 
£2 
25 


143 
118 
160 
174 
130 
134 
201 
212 
237 
261 
278 
268 
6S7 
529 
Gil 
517 
505 














579 


9 
11 
11 
12 
11 
]8 
27 
30 
10 
13 
13 
12 
24 
33 
24 

10 














592 








700 






8 
7 
7 
7 

6 
3 
3 
5 

4 
5 

4 


783 


o 
3 
3 
2 

o 
2 

2 

4 

8 
9 


7 
12 
12 
13 
12 
11 
10 
11 
10 
10 
10 
10 

9 








915 


1866 

18C7 

1S63 

1869 

1870 

1871 

1872 








1086 








1315 








1462 


13 
19 

20 
'.9 
30 
20 
33 


18* 
42 

64 
81 
117 
120 


li' 
32 
41 
43 
71 
57 
67 
54 


2295 
2461 

2538 
2726 


1873 


2960. 


1874 

1>V75... 

187G 

1877 


3.98 
359G 
3034 






3471 











In the table following, the rain- fall is given from the figures of Thomas 
Tennent, for the crop year extending from July 1st to June 30th, and the 
number of the year is taken from the one in which the crop year terminates. 
Thus the crop year of 1852 is the year ending June 30th, of 1852. The ex- 
port of wheat is for a crop year, not a calendar year. The other figures are 
for calendar years. Tho numbers of acres cultivated in all crops and in wheat 
of vines, of tons of shipping that arrive from coast ports, from American ports 
on tho Atlantic, and from all ports, of tons of wheat and of wool and of flasks 
of quicksilver exported are given by tho thousand. Tho number of vines was 
reported by tho assessors in 1874, and since the number of acres in vines. In 
1S7G there were 82,601 acres in vines. 

Vallejo loaded 37 ships with wheat and flour for Europe in the crop year of 
1873; SI in the crop year of 1874; 79 in the crop year of 1875, and 90 in the 
crop year of 1870. Oakland loaded 17 ships with wheat in the crop year of 



APPENDIX. 



491 



1871; 13 in 1872; 110 in 1873; 83 in 1874; SG in 1S75, and 44 in 1S76. Yah 



lejo and Oakland together, now load about two-fifths of 
flour exported; before 18G8 San Francisco loaded all. 



the wheat and 











IN 


THOUSANDS. 










a 
2 

O 
$ 

O 

a 


Acres Cul- 
tivated . 


CO 

1 

r* 
Pi 

& 

<M 

O 
U 

5 
'A 


Tons. 






8HIPPING ARRIVED. 


EXPORTS. 


3 


YEAR. 


o 

■~> 
u 

a 

a 


a 



.a 

a 







x ,^ j SI 3 

= - a a 

IpSJJs ■ 

^""Pi CO 

I51I08 


m 



u 

fa 






O 
CO 

CO 

s 


1830 


r.o 

7 

18 
35 
24 
24 
22 
20 
22 
22 
22 
20 
49 
14 
10 
25 
23 
35 
39 
21 
19 
14 
34 
18 
24 
18 
31 
10 


















1851 


















1852 


















1 


1853 












414 

314 

518 

444 

428 

468 

493 

5.>8 

599 

635 

634 

739 

708 

748 

90G 

1085 

11B6 

1062 

1008 

1240 

1293 

1554 

1590 

1786 

1631 






13 


1854 


"257' 
383 
508 

"763 
937 

1071 

1198 


135 
132 
138 
104 
18G 
27. > 
271 
3G1 

"203' 












21 


1855 


i',666 


190 
138 


148 

149 

110 

114 

157 

130 

121 

120 

115 

1.0 

91 

90 

143 

136 

lf.l 

83 

C8 

97 

88 

89 

110 

123 

150 






27 
24 


1836 


1857 


2 000 ISi 




1 

3 

23 

100 

52 

63 

70 

14 

90 

250 

2-0 

260 

250 

180 

100 

500 

450 

49) 

GOO 


] 
1 
1 



3 

3 

4 . 

4 

4 

5 

7 

8 
10 
11 
12 
16 
20 
22 
28 


27 

24 

3 


1858 

1859 


' 3,6i»6 
6,656 


158 
2' 9 

203 

263 
262 
253 
283 
288 
320 
409 
501 
57 4 
598 
625 
C30 
646 


1860 


9 


1801 


26 


1862 


34 


1863 


26 


1864 


37 


1865 


1504 
1774 
1758 
2132 
2597 
2992 
2 158 
2477 
336G 
3541 
3838 
3370 






42 


I860 


691 
883 
1119 
1263 
1479 
1425 
1739 
2128 
2156 
2321 
2352 


20.001 
20 000 

22,000 
23,000 
2G.C00 
31 ,000 
28 ' 00 
30,000 


30 


1867 


29 


1868 


45 


1869 


24 


1870 


14 


1871 


15 


1872 


13 


1873 


G 


1874 


35,(100 770 


G 


1875 




853 
941 
869 


29 


1876 


41 


1877... 


46 







In the following table the immigrants are given in thousands. Thus in 
1854, G7,000 immigrants arrived, 23,000 departed, and there was a gain of 
44,000. These arc round numbers, and a thousand being the unit of measure- 
ment, any fraction less than half a thousand is not counted: while a fraction 
exceeding a half is counted a:; a whole one. Thus 43,(500 is counted as 44,000; 
while 43,400 is counted as 43,000. The exports, coinage and treasure yield 
arc given in millions of dollars. All the immigrants mentioned in the table 
before 18G9, came or went by sea. After April of that year, the li ;urc3 in- 
clude the statistics of the Central-Union Pacific Railroads. The arrivals 
and departures in 1S70, by rail, were 32,000 and 23,000 respectively; in 1871, 
30,000 and 22,000; in 1372, 34,000 and 22,000; in 1S73, 44,000 and 33,000; in 



492 



HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO. 



1874, 56,000 and 25,000; in 1875, 75,000 and 30,000; in 1S76, 61,000 and 
38,000, and in 1877, 47,000 and 31,000. 





IMMIGRANTS, IN THOU- 
SANDS. 


MILLIONS OF DOLLARS 














> 

< 


CO 

o 

_g 

% 
p. 

ft 


'3 


Chinamen. 


Exports. 


Teeasttbe Yield. 


YEAR. 


d 
u 

ca 
ej 

co 


a 

O CO 
co ^3 


■■J 

EH 


ca 


'3 

u 


a 






CD 

> 

H 

< 


CO 
S-i 
S3 

co 
ft 


> 


1849 


91 
36 

27 1 
G7. 
33 
48 
29 
28 
23 
41 
38 
31 
31 
28 
34 
S2 
2G 
27 
33 
CO 
S8 
52 
42 
f2 
70 
83 
107 
83 
C5 










28 
46 
4S 
f5 
52 
45 
51 
49 
48 
48 
42 
41 
43 
40 
57 
45 
44 
42 
35 
S7 
33 
17 
29 
25 
£0 
43 
50 
58 








23 
59 
GO 
59 
03 
04 
59 
53 
51 
47 
50 
48 
47 
45 
40 
£3 
35 
26 
25 
22 
23 
25 
SO 
19 
18 
20 
13 
19 
13 




is:o 










i 

2 
2 

4 
4 
4 
5 
G 
9 
10 
11 
14 
13 
15 
17 
22 
23 
21 
13 
14 
24 
31 
28 
31 
31 
30 


* 47" 
47 
57 
54 
49 
Co 
C3 
53 
54 
51 
51 
54 
f0 
70 
CO 
CI 
G4 
58 
5S 
51 
31 
53 
C6 
53 
74 
PI 
83 


"lb" 

21 
29 
13 
19 
14 
12 
13 

19 
20 
19 
18 
19 
17 
14 
20 
20 
16 
22 
27 
32 
43 
5J 




1851 












1832 


23 
30 
24 
23 
23 
17 
28 
25 
13 
14 
12 
18 
22 
SO 
23 
CO 
25 
14 
37 
32 
33 
35 
39 
43 
51 
47 


44 
3 
24 
G 
5 
G 
13 
13 
16 
17 
10 
1G 
10 
-4 
4 
10 
33 
24 
15 
10 
19 
35 
45 
04 
35 
IS 


20 
4 

1G 
3 
5 
G 

3 

7 
8 
8 
G 
3 
3 
2 
4 
10 
15 
11 

ib 

18 
17 
18 
16 
10 


2 
4 
o 

3 
3 

2 
3 
3 
2 
4 
3 
3 
3 
2 
3 
4 
4 
5 
4 
3 
5 
7 
8 
7 
8 
8 




1853 




1834 




1835 




1853 




1837 




18 "8 




1839 




1830 

1831. 


1 

2 


1832 

18 ;3 


6 
13 


1834 


17 


1835 


17 


18G(i 


16 


1837 


20 


1808. .' 


13 


1809 


15 


1870 


16 


1871 

1872 

1873 


23 
26 
35 


1874 


3G 


1875.. 


40 


187G 


49 


1877 


52 







INDEX. 



The following index is intended mainly to assist the reader in finding topics 
not mentioned in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the book. 



PAGE. 

Abella, Friar 64,6(3 

Aborigines 19, 25 

Adams &: Co 226,233 

Admission Of state 159, 162 

Alameda, Fridge to 387 

Alameda wharf , 347 

Alcaldes 85, 488 

Alt-many, Archbishop 421, 445 

Almshouse 366 

Alta California 411 

Altimira, Friar 64 

Alvarado. Governor 90 

Alvord, Mayor 488 

American, brig 223,224 

Anita, Bark 204 

Anza, Capt 45 

Apportionments 327, 389 

Archy Case , 270 

Arrow, Brig. 202 

Art Association 385 

Avery, B. P 468 

Ayala 45, 46, 92 

Ayuntamiento 141 

Baker. E. D 310,327,462 

Baldwin, F. J 452 

Banks 267, 365, 373. 404, 406, 487 

Bancroft, George 97 

Bancrolt, II. U 468,483 

Barry, T. A 483 

-Bartlett, W. A lo7, 110, 488 

K.F 129 

Bear flag 102 

y, P. W 57, 93,483 

mi sale 

Belcher bonanza 392 

Hellowa, II. W 335, 337 

Benicia 111,374 

B.-nuett. Judge 162 

Bernal 73,83,483 

Higler, G vernor 184, 280, 315, 488 

Blanco, General 189-191 

I •• lossom rock 382 

Bluxome, 1 217 

B >otb, Governor 88 

Bowman. J. F 421,475 

Brace, Philander. 258 

Brannan, S 97, 108, lt9. 440, 445 



P.^GE. 

Brenham, Mayor -kbs 

Bridge, Islais Cove 366 

Bridge, Mission Cove 352 

Broderick, B. C 281, 319, 487 

Brooklyn 108 

Brown, Charles 483 

Bryant, Alcalde 97, 114, 188 

Bryant, Mayor 488 

Buchanan, President 301 

Bulkhead bill 323 

Bulletin 405, 413,412 

Burnett, Governor 145, '/70, 488 

Burdue 173, 177 

Buri-Buri 73 

Burr, E. \V ; 

Butchertown 373 

Cabrillo 23 

Calaveras water 404, 4U5 

California discovery 26 

California steamer 136, 138 

California Star 109, 120, 125, 126, 441 

Californian 118, 125, 441 

Calistoga 37U 

Call, Morning.. 405, 413, 442 

Cambon, Friar 17, 64 

Carmel Mission 4 i 

Caroline, Bark 203 

Carrillo 81 

Casey, J. P 244, 249, 250 

Castro, Juan 75 

Castro, Governor DO, 104, 105 

Castro, Manuel 101 

Cemeteries 184, 209, 2 . 

Centennial celebration 419 

Centennial of mission 

Central America, Steainer 287 

Censuses 117, 321, ! - 

Challenge, Ship 193-195 

Champagne consumed 457 



Cli 



.44G 



Chico, Governor - 1 

Christian Commission 

Chronicle 442 

Churches 198, 322, 323, 366, 382,444,487 

City Hall 156, l 

City slip sale 

Clemens, Samuel 467 



494 



INDEX. 



Cornstock mines. 



PAGE. 

Clement Ordinance 364 

Clifford, Josephine 468 

Clippers .162 

Coey, General 420 

Coffee, consumed 457 

Cohen, A. A 231-233 

Colton, D. 1> 427, 450,451 

Cole, Senator 398 

Coleman, W. T 172, 246 

Colville, S 484 

Committee of Safety 425 

Commission, Land 178 

(332,339-343,351,358 
(365,374,392,399,428 

Conness, Senator 343-346 

Consolidated Virginia 399, 401, 423, 428 

Convention, Constitutional 140, 144 

Coolbrith, Ina 471 

Coon, Mayor 488 

Cora, Charles 250 

Cortes .., 25 

Cotter-Nugent Duel , 184 

Crabb, H. A 268 

Crcspi, Friar 40, 41, 45, 46 

Crocker, C 451 

Cutts, J. M 484 

Cyane, Corvette 95 

Dana, It. II 95, 265 

Danti, Friar 04 

Davis, Jefferson 159, 202 

Debt, City 354 

Delia Torre 292 

Del Yalle 1 93, 209 

Denver, J. W 184 

Derby, G. H 467 

Diamond fraud 393 

Diaz, Benito 74 

Dillon 191,209 

Dolly Varden party 387, 398 

Donner tragedy Ill 

Donahue, Peter 450 

Downey, Governor 324, 488 

Douglas, S. A 303, 326 

Drake 26 

D wight 346 

Dry dock 366, 370, 383 

Duncan, J. C 422 

Dwindle, J. W 421, 468, 484, 486 

Earthquakes 66, 354,370 

Edward Everett 135 

_, .. ( 144, 183, 262, 284, 292 

Elections { 32o! 331, 3*9, 367, 386 

Estenaga, Friar 64 

Eatell. J. M 299,312,317 

Fstudillo, J. J 78 

Euphemia, Brig 114 

Examiner 442 

Extension bill 197, 313 

Extravagance 454 

Fages, P 39 

Fair, J. G 407, 450 

Farnkam, T. J 484 

Fillmore, President 280 

Figueroa, Governor 70 

Fires 133, 156, 168, 404, 415 



PAGE. 

Fire department 357, 359 

Fitch, H. D 74 

Fitch, Thomas 413 

Fitch, Mrs. Thomas 474 

Flood, J. C 401, 450 

Florida, privateer 349 

Flores, G 71 

Folsom, J. L 111,4">4 

Foote, H. S 293 

Forbes, Alex 94,98, 484 

Fourgeaud.V 97, 120 

Francesca 110,111 

Franciscan order 33 

Fraser fever 273 

Freeman, A. C 468 

Fremont, J. C 100, 106, 157, 167 

French-German war 384 

French immigration 185 

French subscription -> 384, 446 

Friars 03, 64 

Friedlander, Isaac 426 

Galindo 73 

Gambling, Public 143, 235 

Garrison, C. K 239, 409, 4S8 

Gassaway, F. H 475 

Geary, J. W 143, 155,488 

German Subscription 384, 446 

Gihon, J. H 483 

Gilbert, Edward 117, 143, 145, 167, 184 

Gleesoj-, Rev. Mr 484 

Goat Island ., 389 

Gold Bluff. 272 

Gold currency ■. 348 

Gold fever 126-132 

Gold hunter 151 

Goodman, J. T 475 

Gorham, G. C 307 

Gould and Curry . 428 

Governors, list of 488 

Grading -.. . 432-438 

Graham House 156 

Greenhow, li 96 

Guerrero, F 74,85 

Gutierrez, Governor 82 

Gwin, W. M.143, 157, 167, 181,253, 292-305, 487 

Haggin, J. B 453 

Haight, Governor 368,483 

Halle.'k, General 335, 408 

Hammond, B. P 2S6 

Happy Valley 157 

H-rte, F. B 467,468 

Haro, F. de 73, 74, 85, 366 

Harris, Mayor 488 

Hawes. Horace 388 

Hayes Park 444 

HayesTract 278 

Hay ward, A 452 

Herald 184 

Hetherington, Joseph 257 

Hewston, Mayor 488 

Hinckley, Wm 79, 87, 86 

Hitchcock, General 202 

Hittel, J. S 484 

Hittell.T. H 4(8 

Hoadley, M 209,436 

Hoffman, Judge 292, 4S6 

Home Life 447 



INDEX. 



495 



PAGE. 

Homestead lots 335, 309 

Hooker, General 335 

Hopkins, Mark 426, 450 

Hospitals 323 

Hotels. . ..322, 323, 334, 352, 373, 404, 433, 419 

H.-.unds, The 148 

Howard, V. E 254.291 

Hudson Bay Company 85, 88 -'JO 

Humphrey, I 124 

Huntington, C. P 450 

Hunt, T. D 443 

Hutchings' Magazine 484 

Hyde, Alcalde 114,488 

Ide.W. B 103 

Inge, I. W 291 

Irwin, Governor 488 

Janin, H 394 

Jenkins, J 173 

Jenny Lind Theatre 109, 184 

Jones, Commodore 'J 5 

Jones, John P 452, 4G8 

Johnson, Governor 254, 481 

Kearnv, Gen 123 

Kearny street 339, 3C0, 305 , 378 

Keene, James «... .452 

Kemble, E. C 125 

Kern River 273 

King, Clarence... 395 

King, James 243, 244 

King, T. Starr 33G, 350 

Kip, Bishop 145 

Kotzebuc 92 

Lagoon at Mission 40 

Lane, Dr. L. C 438 

Lands, Outside 3G2, 364, 3G9 

Langley. H. G 483, 481 

Larkin, T. O 99,105, 110, 454 

Latham, M. S 29G, 299,305, 317, 453, 483 

Lawson, Mrs. Emilia 473 

Leavenworth, Alcalde ... 1-11, 149, 188 

Leese. J. P 73,79-85, 103 

Libraries 382, 441 

Lick, James 309, 403, 404, 41G, 418, 4-7 

Lick, John U 417 

Limantour 75 

Lincoln, President 32G, 349 

Lloyd. B. E 408, 4S4 

Lots, Sale of 116, l'O 

Low, Governor 488 

Lux, Charles 453 

Macdomld, Hon. D. A 421 

Macgregor.W. L 485 

Mackey, J W 402, 450 

Magutre, T 812 

Mails. Overland 269, 82 I, 332 

Marchena, P 75 

Marshall, J. W 121 

Martinez, Alcalde 85 

Mason, Governor 128 

Me A) lister. Judge 292 

MeConih, General 121 

M -Cnppin, Mayor 369, 4^s 

McCoppin ordinance 364 

McDougal, James A 331, 311 



PAGE. 

McDougal, Governor John 282, 488 

McQowan, E 257, 312 

McKenzie, Robert 17G 

McKim 150 

McPherson, General 335 

Mechanics' Institute 267 

Meiggs, II 218, 226 

Merced llaneho 73 

Merchants' Exchange 3<;5 

Merritt, Captain 103 

Mervine, Captain 104: 

Mezzara, Madame 385 

Michel orena, Governor 90 

Miller, II 153 

Miller, Joaquin 474 

Millionaires 450 

Mills, D. O 410, 433 

Mission Buildings C4 

Mis ion Indians 49-G2 

Mofras 98, 9G, 485 

Montgomery, Captain 104 

Montgomery Avenue 404 

Montgomei y stre t 378 

Montgomery street straight 373, 378 

Moraga 47, 48 

Morrell, Capt 93 

Municipal Reports 484 

New Montgomery ttreet 373, 374 

Niantic 165 

Nisbct. James 4^3 

Noe, Alcalde 74, 83, 85 

Nugent, J 184 

Oakland 270,339, 374, 381, 397, 487 

O'Brien, \V. S 101,420, 450 

O'Connell, Daniel 175 

O'FarreD.J 114 

Omnibuses 

Oregon steamer 138 

Osio.A.M 74 

Overland Monthly 485 

Pacheco, Dolores 100, 101 

Pad. ceo. Governor 4-8 

Pacific Mail Company 138, 235, 357 

P..dilla, Alcalde 86 

Page, Mrs. E. A. S 175 

Page, Bacon & Co 220 

Palace Hotel 399, 401, 438 

Palmer, Cook & Co 2 

PalOU, Friar. ... 34, 46, 47, 4 », 49, 55, I 

Panama steamer 

Panama ltailroud -'■>3 

Panics 215 

Park. Golden Gate 382, 487 

Parrott, J 

Patten, B. A 483 

Peace with Mexico 121 

People's Party 262 

Perkins, T. II 112 

Parley, 1>. W 306, 307 

Phelps, T. G 313 

Pico, Governor 101, b'4 

Piercy, C. TV 831 

Piiia.J 74 

Pioche mines 892 

!' Society 1 '' t 

Pioneer Magaziuo 



496 



INDEX, 



TAGE. 

Pixley, F. M 341, 3 16 

Pollock, Edward 408 

Pony express 324 

Population statistics 489 

Portala, Governor 09, 40, 42, 47 

Portsmouth, Sloop 107 

Post 442 

Post-office 139, 373 

Potrero , 73, 3G6 

Proffitt, Johu 468 

Pueblo 76, 3G3 

Purdy, S 315 

( 333, 339. 348, 353,358. 306,367, 
Railroads { 370, 372-376, 381, 386, 390-392, 

( 422. 

railroads, Street 320, 334, 339, 358, 333 

Ralston, W. C 404-414 

Raousset 187-193 

Ravenswood Bridge .387 

Ray 89, 90 

Reese, M 426, 427, 453 

Rc-quena, M 80 

Richardson, W. A 77, 73 

Riley, Governor 141, 142, 145 

Rincon Hill 380 

Rivera, Governor 39, 43 

Roads. Toll 151, 198,339,347 

Rugs' Garden 198,444 



Sales of lots 113 

San Antonio ...39, 40, 42 

San Carlos 39, 45 

Sanchez, Francisco 73, 83, 85, 1:3 

Sanchez, Jose 83,86 

San Francisco Bay discovered 41 

Sanitary Commission 335-339 

San Joaqu n Valley .371 

San Miguel Rancho 74 

San Pedro Rancho 73 

Santa Anna 192 

Santillan 75, 320, 445 

Sargent, Senator 343,344 

Saucel to 374 

Seawall 333 

Second street cut 373, 379 

Securalization 70 

Selbv, T. H 410, 4S8 

Semple, CD 110 

Senator, Steamer 151 

Serra, Junipero 32-39, 485 

Shafter, J. M 453 

Sharon, W 408, 450, 462 

Sherman, W. T 253, 335, 441 

Mierreback, P 74, 320 

Showalter, D 331 

Simpson, Sir George 90, 9G, 485 

Site : 432 

Sloat, Commodore 97, 103, 104 

Smith, Peter, titlo 1S4, 320 

Social Spirit 453 

Soule, Frank 469, 4S3, 484 

Spear, N 79, 87 

Stanford, Governor 451, 483 

Statisti 3 .489-491 

Steam Navigation Company 203, 487 

Steamer, Ii.st 119 

Stearns Abel 80 

Sttbbins, II 421 



PAGR. 

Stevenson's Regiment no 

Stillman, Dr 40, 13l',4G8,'485 

Stock Board 333,365 

Stockton, Commodore 105 

Stoddard, C.W 408, 471 

Stockton street cut KJ 380 

Stuart, J .172, 175 

Sugar consumed 457 

Sullivan, James 251 

Sullivan, John , 453 

Surveys , ."."*.". . 86 

Sutter, J. A 89 

Swift, J. F 468 

Swett, John 486 

Tea consumed '458 

Telegraphs 193 

Telegraph, Fire 352 

Telegraph Hill. 134, 185, 198, 443 

Terry, .t ;.. S 254, 3.6-309 

Tesc&emacher, Mayor 488 

Tevis, Lloyd 4.^3 

Theatres 193, 07 J, 487 

Thomas, P. J -184 

Tide Find sales 113, 199, 373 

Tilford.F 317 

Tuthill, F 40S.483 

Turrill, C. B 463 

Union, Adherence to 331 

Unicn Barty 334 

United States Frigate 95 



Vallcjo, M. G 103, 

Yallejo, town 370, 074, 075, 081, 

Vancouver 92, 

Vanderbilt , 

Van N ess, Mayor 

Verdugo 79 

Vig lance Committee of 1851 172- 

Vigilance Committee of 1856 245- 

Vioget 

Virginia City 

Visitacion Rancho 

Vizcaino 

Von Schmidt, A. W 



421 
080 
480 
239 
488 
,80" 
•178 
262 



415 
. 73 
.29 

US.) 



"Walker, Vv'm 192, 200-205, 237-209 

Walcott, Josephine 472 

Washbu rn, C. A 289 

Washington, B. F 2S0 

Water supply 334 

Watt. Wm 42 7 

Webb, Mayor ..483 

Weller, JohnB 283, 291, 296,483 

Wharves 1C4, 2()9 

Wh te Pine 373, 377 

Whittaker, S 176 

Wilkes, Commodore 94, 480 

Willows, Tho 444 

Woods, I. C 229-233 

Woodward's Garden 357, 444 

Wool, General 202, 2$3 

Workingmen's Party 424 

Wright, Congressman 145, 167 

Yaficz, General 195 

Young, C. & M. H. De 484 



SUBSCRIBERS. 



The following is an incomplete list of subscriptions to The History of the 
City of San Francisco, and Incidentally of the State of California, 
for the benefit of the Hebrew, Catholic and Protestant Orphan Asylums in 
San Francisco, and the yellow fever sufferers in the Gulf States, for which 
charities Col. Wm. Harney, under resolution of the auditing committee of 
the Centennial Celebration, is the trustee : 



Andrews, Col. A. (3 copies.) 

Adams, W. J. 

Alvord, Wm. (2 copies.) 

Anderson, Mrs. H. F. 

A^be, C. L. 

Abbott, L. 

Bailey, R. S. 

Bayley, C. A. 

Bl'ke, Cbarles. 

Li) lings, Harbourno & Co. 

Burges, T. 

Bastbeirn, J. 

Beal, Samuel. 

Bradford, Wallace 

Boyd, Calvin M. 

Cotter, E. B. 
Courtney, A. H. 
CLntun, George A. 
Conner, Jobn. 
Craig, Peter. 
Curry, Jobn. 
Coey, Wm. J., Jr. 
Cobn, J. 

Cooper, George E. 
Coleman, Jobn E. W. 
Conklin, Frank. 
Cbase, W. W. 
Cima, V. L. de 

Davis, Jobn. 

Dutcber, J. M. 

Dunker, C. 

Devoe, B. O. 

Donoboe, Kelly & Co. (3 copies. 

Day, TbomaH. 

Duncan, J. K. (Vallejo.) 

Derbec, Etienne. 

Ellis, Gen. Jobn S. 

32 



Fairfax, Mrs. C. S. 
Falconer, R. S. 
Firtb, Joscpb B. 
Farrell. Mrs. E. 
Flinn, Mrs. 
Floyd, S. W. 
Fox, Wm. C. 

Green, F. Du Brutz. 
Good, A. J. 
Glazier, S. W. 
Godcbaux, Myrtil. 
Gibbons, H. Dr. 
Geneben, B. 
Green, J. C. 

Harney, Col. Wm. (2 copies., 
Himby, Heney S. 
Hatbaway, E.V. 
Harrison, J. V. 
Hinckley, Speers & Hayes. 
Hollander, S. 
Huerne, P. 
Harris, D. 
Hagemann, F., Jr. 

Jacquot, Giraudin A. 
Jenson, T. 
Jewell, A.M. 
Jury Brotbers. 

King, H. L. (3 copies.) 
Kennedy, Mrs. J. A. 
King, Cameron H. 
Kane, Jobn O. 
Kennedy, James K. 
Kenny, Jobn. 
Kavauaufb. George. 
Kneass, Dallas A. (2 copies.) 



498 



SUBSCRIBERS. 



Lunt, W. H. 

Lane, John J. 

Low, Mrs. C. L. 

Lazard Freres (3 copies) 

Lenekin, N. M. 

Le Breton, Albert J. 

Livingstone, Binaldo E. 

McCarthy, Mrs. J. C. 
McDougall, Admiral. 
McLea, Donald. 
Mallon, John. 

Macdonald, D. A. (3 copies). 
Marselas, G. W. 
IVIiddlemas & Boole. 
Montanya, Mrs. J. DeLa. 
IVIcKew. John. 
Merle. V. V. 
Metcalf, James B. 
IVIcIunes, J. A. 
McGath, John. 
Mils, D.O. 
Mott, Edward M. 
Moore, Mrs. J. G. 
Mcllwain, John. 
Meagher, J. F. (2 copies.) 
Newman, Carlton. 
Neustadter, D. 

Osmer, C. 
Ortiz, Celedonio. 

Page, Kobert C. 
Piercy, John D. 
Plank, L. 
Plum, C. M. 
Poultney, George W. 
Phillips, G. M. 

Eoundey, George B. 
Eichardson, 11. W. 
Eichardson, W. L. 
Eoach, Philip A. 
Bosenbaurn, M. 
Bead, EH. 



Boethe, C. 

Bohn & Sherwood. 

Byan, Thomas. 

Skelly, M. 
Shaw, George T. 
Station A, Post-office. 
Staude, John. 
Starr, W. M. 
Seyinour, Mrs. A. C. 
Stroecker, H. H. W. 
Scott, Bichard. 
Segehon, H. 
Schell, Mrs. G. L. 
Stoddard, Charles Warren. 
Smith, Joseph. 
Scott, Mrs. E. W. 
Sloan, W. B. 
Soker, D. L. 
Schnoor, C. H. 
Swett, Daniel, 
Schulte, J. G. W. 

Thomas, Bailey & Co. 
Taylor, P. 
Toland, H. H. 
Thornton, H. 
Tichenor, H. B. 
Thornton, L. C. 

Upton, Mrs. J. P. 

Van Duzen, A. P. 

Wallace, W. T. 
Weaver, P. L. 
Wessell, John. 
Wieland, John. 
Weletsky, W. 
Waddell, Mrs. H. H. 
Wells, George B. 
Weems, J. P. 
Wannemachf r k Co. 
Wheeler, Bichard. 
White, D. W. 



l; v.. 



